When the first frog dropped from the sky, Avshar thought it a freak of nature and crushed it under his boot. Then another one fell, and then a handful of them. A few hundred yards ahead, the sound of battle changed. The wizard-prince lifted his head, wary as an old wolf at a shift of wind.
Sensing his distraction, the demon cowering in the sorcerous fire lashed out with all its might, trying to break free from his control. Avshar staggered. “Test me, wilt thou?” he roared, gathering all his powers to hurl against the rebellious fiend. It resisted, but could not draw on the full power of its swarm; its mates were not yet entirely on the plane where it battled. He beat it back and lashed it with agony it had never imagined. With a final gesture of sublime hatred, the wizard-prince severed the connection between the swarm leader and its comrades.
Aghast, solitary in a way it had never known, the demon wailed and yammered. “Less than thou deservest, traitorous maggot!” Avshar hissed.
He readied the cantrip that would reunite the swarm with its leader and bring them through to do his bidding, but had no time to cast it. While he and the demon had fought, the battle ahead was collapsing. Khamorth galloped by, too unstrung by frogs and Arshaum to fear the wizard any more. And the Arshaum themselves could only be seconds behind, hot for revenge against his archery.
His fists balled in fury. It all but choked him—outdone by a two-copper bit of conjuring! But he had survived too long to yield to rage’s sweet temptation. He bounded atop his great black charger—no time for a spell of apportation, even if he were not spent by his earlier magics. His long-sword rasped out. Cold iron, then, and nothing else.
No, not quite. As the wizard touched spurs to the stallion’s flanks, he swung his sword arm in a quick, intricate pattern. The blue flames of his balefire died; the demon within sprang free.
Avshar pointed east. “Slay me the leader of that accursed rabble, and then I give thee leave to get hence and join thy fellows once more.”
The demon’s claws clutched hungrily. Its slanted eyes were still filled with horror at aloneness. It mounted to the air on black, leathery batwings and circled above the field to seek its commanded quarry.
The wizard-prince did not watch it go. He was already galloping south, away from the fleeing Khamorth. They were a broken tool, but he had others.
Viridovix paid no attention when the druids’ stamps on his sword flared to golden life. They had been gleaming gently for some time from Tolui’s sorcery, and he was deep in the press, laying about him for all he was worth. He kept shouting the Wolves’ war cry, though his throat was raw and his voice hoarse. Several times he had heard answering shouts that did not come from Batbaian and once saw a pair of Khamorth chopping at each other with axes. Varatesh’s jerry-built power was cracking at the first defeat.
As if the name was enough to conjure the man, he spied the outlaw chief not fifty feet away, using the strength of his fine horse to force his way through the crush. Varatesh’s eyes locked with his. Viridovix raised his sword in challenge. Varatesh nodded, once, and turned his mount’s head. He struck one of his own men across the shoulders with the flat of his shamshir. “Make way, there! This is between the pair of us!”
They moved cautiously toward one another, each aware of his opponent’s strengths. At swords afoot Viridovix would have been confident; he was a better man with the blade than Varatesh ever would be. But the nomad’s lifelong rapport with his horse canceled the Gaul’s advantage.
Confident in his horsemanship, Varatesh struck first, a cut at the Celt’s head that Viridovix easily beat aside. The outlaw chief swung up his blade in salute. “A pity it must end this way. Had the spirits made the world but a little different, we might have been friends, you and I.”
“Friends, is it?” Viridovix wheeled his horse, slashed; with liquid grace, Varatesh ducked under the stroke. Memories swam behind the Gaul’s eyes until a red mist all but robbed him of vision: Varatesh kicking him in the point of the elbow to warn against escape when he was the renegade’s captive; a butchered camp—oh, and one body in particular—the remembrance of Seirem smote him like a blow; a thousand blinded men stumbling along with weeping red empty sockets, tied to half a hundred left one-eyed to guide them. “Friends wi’ the likes o’ you, you murthering sod? The Empire’s Skotos’d spit on you.” He cut again, anger lending his arm fresh force. Varatesh grunted as he turned the slash. The next one got home.
Pain twisted the Khamorth’s mouth, but from Viridovix’ words, not the wound. “I know what you think,” he said, and the Celt could not help but believe him. “Those outrages I was forced to, and the ones before as well. I loathe myself for every one. It was do as I did or die, after I was wrongly outlawed.” His voice was full of desperate pleading, as though he was trying to convince himself and Viridovix both that he spoke truly.
For a moment the Gaul felt sympathy, but then his eyes grew hard and his hand tightened once more on his sword hilt. “A man flung into a dungheap can climb out and wash himself, or he can wade deeper. Think on the choice you made.”
The explosive rage that made Varatesh dangerous to friend and foe alike turned his handsome features into a mask more frightening than the one Tolui wore. He showered blows on Viridovix, using his lighter, quicker blade to strike and then strike again, never giving the Celt a chance to reply. Viridovix dodged in the saddle, parrying as best he could. He felt steel cut him, but battle fever ran too high to let him know the hurt yet.
Not so his horse; it squealed and bucked when Varatesh laid open its shoulder. Viridovix flew over its head. He landed heavily on his side. As Varatesh wheeled his own beast to come round and finish the job, the Gaul scrambled to his feet. He grabbed at his pony’s reins, hoping he could mount before the Khamorth was upon him. He missed. The pony, wild with pain, ran off still leaping and kicking.
Varatesh’s gore-smeared grin was a ghastly thing to see. Viridovix hefted his sword and planted his feet firmly, though facing a horseman afoot was a fight with only one likely ending.
Just as Varatesh urged his horse at the Gaul, another rider hurtled toward him out of the crowd of fighters watching the single combat. The outlaw chief whirled to face the unexpected attack, but too late. Batbaian’s scimitar rose and fell. “For my father!” he cried. Blood spurted. He slashed again. “My mother!” Varatesh reeled. “Seirem!” Two cuts, forehand and back, delivered with savage force. “And for me!” Varatesh gave a bubbling scream as the sword hacked across his face, giving Batbaian exact retribution for his own disfigurement.
The renegade toppled to the ground, lay still. “Take his horse,” Batbaian called to Viridovix. He hurried forward. Varatesh groaned and rolled over onto his back. Viridovix swung up his sword to finish him, but the outlaw’s one-eyed dying stare transfixed him.
Varatesh’s mouth worked. “Outlawed wrongly … not … my fault,” he choked out. “Swear … Kodoman drew knife … first.” He coughed blood and died, the dreadful insistence still set on his face.
The pony did a nervous dance step as Viridovix’ unfamiliar weight swung into the saddle, but it bore him. The Celt glanced at Varatesh’s corpse. “D’you suppose he was telling the truth, there at the end?”
Batbaian frowned. “I don’t care. He earned what he got.” He hesitated, looked for a moment as young as his years. “I’m sorry I broke into the duel.”
“I’m not, lad,” Viridovix said sincerely. He was starting to feel his wounds. “For all he was a cullion, the kern was as bonny a fighter as ever I faced; belike he had me there. And,” he added quietly, “you gave him your reasons for it.” Satisfied, Batbaian nodded.
Their chief’s fall spurred on the rout of the Khamorth. They fled north, pressed hard by Arghun’s forces. The khagan waved the standard over his head, urging his riders on. Flanked by his two sons, he caught up with Viridovix and Batbaian at the spearhead of the attack. “You know him, the one you brought down?” he said.
“Aye,” said Batbaian; Viridovix, almost as brief, ampli
fied: “Varatesh, it was.”
Arghun’s face lit with the smile of a general who sees victory assured, the smile of a man for whom war still holds joy. “No wonder they break, then! Well fought, both of you.”
Viridovix grunted; Batbaian said nothing. Dizabul and even Arigh scowled at their churlishness, but the Gaul did not care. Some triumphs were too dearly won for rejoicing.
Someone was plucking at his sleeve. He turned to find Gorgidas by his side; it was like meeting someone from another world. “Still alive, are you?” he said vaguely.
The Greek’s answering grin was haggard. “Through no fault of my own, I think. Wherever I get the chance hereafter, I’ll stick to writing up battles instead of fighting in them—safer and less confusing, both.” He grew businesslike, drawing a long strip of wool from his saddlebag. “Let me tie up your arm. That slash that got through your cuirass will have to wait until we have time to get it off you.”
For the first time, Viridovix realized that the dull ache in his chest was not just exhaustion; he felt warm wetness trickling down his ribs and saw the rent in his boiled-leather armor. A flesh wound, he decided, since he had none of the shortness of breath that went with a punctured lung.
He held out his arm to Gorgidas for bandaging, then jerked it away. The druids’ marks were yellow fire down the length of his sword. But the rain of frogs, having served its purpose, was slackening. “Avshar!” the Gaul shouted, looking wildly in every direction for the wizard-prince.
But when the danger came, it dropped from the skies like Tolui’s frogs, hurtling down like a stooping hawk. Arghun suddenly groaned. The standard went flying from his hands and fell to the ground as he pitched forward on his horse, clawing at the crow-sized horror that clung to the back of his neck.
It was clawing too, its talons ripping through sinew and softer flesh. Its razor-sharp beak tore deeply into him; everyone close by heard bone break. Batwings overlay the khagan’s shoulders like the shadow of death. His struggles lessened.
Arigh and Dizabul cried out together; no one could have said which of their swords first descended on the demon’s back. But its armored integument turned their blades. It glared hatred at them through slit-pupiled eyes red as the westering sun and did not loose its hold.
Then Viridovix slashed at the creature. The druids’ stamps flashed like lightning as his sword cleaved the unearthly flesh; he blinked and shook his head, half dazzled by the explosion of light. The demon shrieked, a high, thin squall of anguish. Foul-smelling ichor sprayed from it, spattering the Gaul’s sword hand. He jerked it away; the stuff burned like vitriol.
Still screaming, the demon dropped off Arghun and thrashed in its death throes. In a rage born of disgust and dread, Virdovix hacked it clean in two. The wailing stopped, but each half quivered on with unnatural vitality. Then, when it was truly dead, its flesh crumbled to fine gray ash and blew away on the breeze.
“Out of my way, curse you!” Gorgidas said, pushing past the Celt and Arigh to reach Arghun’s side. The khagan was slumped over his horse’s back; Gorgidas sucked in a sharp, dismayed breath when he saw the gaping wound Arghun had taken. The khagan’s face was gray, his eyes rolled back in his head. Gorgidas stanched the flow of blood as well as he could and groped for a pulse. He felt none.
Near panic, the physician reached into himself for the healer’s trance. He felt his awareness of his surroundings, of everything but Arghun’s dreadful injuries, slip away. Laying his hands on them, he sent out the healing power with all the force at his command. But there was nothing to receive it, no spark of life for it to jump to. He had felt that awful emptiness before, trying to save Quintus Glabrio when his lover was far past saving.
Slowly Gorgidas returned to himself. He looked from Arigh to Dizabul and spread his hands, wet with their father’s blood. “He is gone,” he told them. His voice broke and he could not go on; Arghun had treated him like a son these last few months, in gratitude for his life. This time it was a gift Gorgidas could not give him.
Dizabul and Arigh shed no tears; that was not the Arshaum way. Instead they drew their daggers and gashed their own cheeks, mourning with blood rather than water. Then, knives still in their hands, they stared at each other with sudden hard suspicion. One of them would be khagan, and Arghun had named no successor.
When Arghun’s standard fell, the pursuit of the fleeing Khamorth broke down in confusion as the Arshaum reined in to find out what had happened. As they did, they followed his sons in marking his passage with their own blood. Lankinos Skylitzes unhesitatingly imitated the nomads; the rest of the Videssian embassy party mourned in their own way.
“Where did the wizard run?” Arigh called to the growing crowd of men around him. He jerked his chin northwards at the cloud of dust that marked the flight of the broken Khamorth. “If he’s with that rabble, I’ll chase them till I fall off the edge of the world.”
Several of Irnek’s men spoke to their own chieftain, who rode forward and bowed in the saddle to Arigh and Dizabul both, with nicely calculated impartiality. They eyed each other again. Irnek smiled, quickly erased it. He’s setting them against each other while they’re groggy with grief, Gorgidas realized, to weaken the Gray Horses and advance his own Black Sheep clan. He had thought that tall, cool Arshaum had a ready wit—the fellow maneuvered like a Videssian.
Irnek’s words, though, could not have been rehearsed, not when he had just learned of Arghun’s death. He said, “A giant in white mantlings on a great horse cut his way through my riders and headed south.” His warriors shouted confirmation; one had been disarmed by a stroke of Avshar’s broad-sword, and counted himself lucky not to have lost his head as well.
“Anthrax take the Hairies, then! Let them run,” Arigh said. His wave encompassed a score of his clansmen. “Get fresh horses from camp and be after the wizard. I don’t care how fast that big black stallion is—aye, I’ve seen it. He has no remounts, and we’ll run him down, soon or late.” He grinned wolfishly at the prospect.
As the riders hurried away, Dizabul rounded on his brother, angrily demanding, “Who are you, to give orders so?” One of Irnek’s eyebrows might have twitched, but his features were too well schooled to give away much of what he was thinking.
“And who are you, to say I may not?” Arigh’s voice was silky with danger. The Gray Horse Arshaum surreptitiously jockeyed for position, some lining up behind one brother, some behind the other. Gorgidas was dismayed to see how much support Dizabul enjoyed. He had largely recovered from the ignominy of backing Bogoraz, and many of his clanmates were more comfortable with him than with Arigh after Arghun’s elder son had spent so much time in Videssos, away from the steppe.
Irnek sat quiet on his horse, weighing the balance of forces.
“A moment, gentlemen!” Pikridios Goudeles forced his way through the crowd to Arigh and Dizabul. The dapper envoy was sadly draggled, covered with blood, dust, and sweat. His voice had nothing wrong with it, though, rolling out rich and deep in the trained phrasing of the rhetorician. “The command is sensible, no matter who gives it.”
He could not be as grandiloquent in the Arshaum tongue as in his own Videssian, but by now he spoke it fairly well. Agrhun’s sons turned their heads to listen. He continued, “Consider who gains from your disunity at the moment of victory—only Avshar. Suppressing him is your chiefest goal; all else comes afterward. Is it not so?”
“Truth,” Arigh said soberly. Dizabul still glowered, but nodded in reluctant agreement. The Gray Horse clansmen visibly relaxed. Irnek’s mouth was a little tight, but he bobbed his head Goudeles’ way, respecting the diplomat for his skill.
But then Batbaian spoke out: “It is not so!” Heads swung his way in surprise. He said, “With Varatesh dead—may the ghosts of hungry wolves gnaw his spirit’s privates forever—and Avshar routed, what needs doing is setting Pardraya right once more, so their wickedness can never flourish here again.” He trotted his pony a few paces north, toward the vanished Khamorth. “Are you w
ith me, V’rid’rish?”
The Gaul started; he had not expected the question. The naked appeal on Batbaian’s face tore at him, and life with Targitaus’ clan, though very different from the one he had known in Gaul, had had some of the same easygoing freedom to it. Two summers before, he had been ready to desert Videssos for Namdalen, but now when he probed his feelings he found only a small temptation and a regret that it was not greater.
He shook his head sadly. “I canna, lad. Avshar’s the pit o’ the peach, I’m thinking, and my foeman or ever I came to the plains. I willna turn away from him the now.”
Batbaian slumped like a man taking a wound. “I’ll go alone, then. I have my duty, just as you think you have yours.” Viridovix flinched at his choice of words. The Khamorth said, very low, “There will always be a place for you in my tents.” He wheeled his horse and started to ride away.
“Wait!” Irnek called. Batbaian reined in. The Arshaum chieftain said, “Would you ride with my men at your back? With your Hai—” He choked the word off. “—ah, people in disarray, we can make you master as far east as the plains run.”
Here, thought Gorgidas, was truly one with an eye toward the main chance. Batbaian might have been reading his mind, for he barked out two syllables of a laugh. “If I said yes to that, Arshaum, your men would be riding on my back, not at it. I’ll not be your bellwether for you, with my ballocks cut off and a chime round my neck to lead my folk to your herding. We remember how you drove the last of us east over the Shaum a lifetime ago. You hunger for Pardraya, too, now, do you? Thank you all the same, but I’ll win or fall on my own.”
“Will you?” Irnek said. He was still smiling, but with his mouth only; his eyes had gone flinty. His men stirred, looking to him for orders. Batbaian hesitated, then reached for his shamshir.
But Arigh rapped out, “By the wind spirits, he does as he pleases. He’s paid the price for the right.” This once, Dizabul backed his brother. A mutter of agreement rose from the riders of the Gray Horse Arshaum, who knew and admired Batbaian’s quality. They stared in challenge at Irnek’s Black Sheep.
Swords of the Legion (Videssos) Page 13
