Swords of the Legion (Videssos)

by Harry Turtledove

  Had there been more Namdaleni, they might have torn the battle open. As it was, the Yezda swarmed round their flanks and poured arrows into them. Not even their mail coats or their horses’ protective trappings were wholly proof against that withering fire. Their progress slowed.

  But in bringing the knights to a standstill, the Yezda thinned their own line. Seeing an opening in front of him, Provhos Moutzouphlos stormed through it with the headlong dash that had first made Thorisin notice him. Shooting and chopping, he led a company of Videssian horsemen as reckless as himself clean into the enemy’s rear.

  Again, if the rest of the imperials had matched his troopers’ quality, they could have split the Yezda in two and rolled up their right wing. The Yezda knew it, too; their cries grew frantic. The legionaries cheered, not knowing what had happened but sure it meant no good for their foes.

  Yet despite the cheers, despite Mourtzouphlos’ pleading and his oaths, the other Videssians hung back a few seconds too long. The Yezda repaired the breach, and then Mourtzouphlos was trapped, not they.

  He turned his company straight for Avshar, but that way was blocked—too many Yezda and Makurani, all headed straight for him. His shout rose above the battlefield din: “Back to our own, lads!” Those who made it—maybe half the number who had plunged into the breach—burst out between the Namdaleni and Halogai, having hacked their way through a third of the Yezda army.

  Along with the rest of Gavras’ forces, Marcus was yelling himself hoarse at the exploit—until he recognized Mourtzouphlos. “I will be damned,” he said to no one in particular. “Something to the popinjay after all.” As it had before, the thought grated.

  In the heart of the Yezda battle array, Avshar seethed with frustration. He felt all his designs, all his long-nursed plans tottering. For the hundredth time he gave Balsamon his curses, hurling another spell at the patriarch of Videssos.

  It hurt; he could sense Balsamon’s anguish. That was sweet, but not sweet enough. Eventually, he knew, he would shatter the patriarch like a dropped pot—but when? Ordinarily Balsamon could not have withstood the first blast of his sorcery, but this, worse luck, was no ordinary time. In his desperation he had somehow screwed himself up to such a pitch that he was still resisting. Even without Avshar’s assaults, the effort that took would kill him in a couple of days, but the wizard-prince could not wait so long.

  Being unable to use his magic frightened Avshar as nothing else had. Without it he was just another warlord, dependent on his wit and his soldiers to gain his triumph—or to lose. The imperials showed no sign of giving way; if anything, they seemed steadier than his barbarous levies. The Yezda were bold enough when they scented victory, but quick as any nomads to melt away if checked.

  The wizard-prince ground his teeth. Why, he had almost been in the hand-to-hand himself, when that Videssian maniac sliced his men like cheese. He wished Mourtzouphlos had reached him; even without his sorceries, he would have given the wretch a bitter death for his daring.

  Suddenly Avshar threw back his head and laughed. Several horses around him shied; he paid no notice. “What a dolt I am!” he exclaimed. “If the bridge has fallen into the stream, I can swim across just the same.”

  He stared over the grappling lines of soldiers, measuring what he had to do. Even for him it would not be easy, but it was within his power. Laughing again, he reached for a black-fletched arrow and set it to his bow.

  The moan that went up from the Videssian center was so loud and deep that Marcus thought the Emperor had fallen. But Thorisin’s sunburst standard still flew, and the tribune saw him under it on his bay charger, urging his troops on. In his gilded parade armor, coronet, cape, and red boots, he was unmistakable.

  The Halogai were holding well, and the left wing, if anything, was still advancing. Where was the trouble, then? Scaurus used his inches to peer about. There was some confusion a bit behind the Avtokrator, several imperials huddled around a riderless mule—

  The tribune did not realize he had groaned aloud until Viridovix said, “Where is it you’re hit, man?”

  “Not me,” Scaurus said impatiently. “Balsamon’s down.”

  “Och, a pox!”

  Marcus grabbed one of his Romans by the arm. “Find Gorgidas and get him over there,” he ordered, pointing. Almost certainly, Videssian healers were already tending to the patriarch, but he did not overlook the one-in-a-thousand chance that they were all dead or out of action. The legionary dashed away.

  Gorgidas went to Balsamon’s aid at the dead run. He did not know the patriarch as Scaurus did and cared nothing for him as a religious leader; Gorgidas was no Phos-worshiper. But any man with the spiritual strength and will to bring Avshar’s sorcery to a standstill was too precious to lose to a chance-fired dart—for such the Greek assumed it was.

  Scaurus had been right in thinking the healer-priests would be doing their best for the prelate. They stared suspiciously at Gorgidas as he came puffing up, then eased in manner as they recognized him for one who shared their skill, even if a foreigner. “The good god bless you for your concern,” one said, sketching Phos’ sun-circle over his heart, “but you are too late. You would have been too late the instant he was hit.”

  “Let me see him,” the physician said. He pushed through the imperials; with their near-miraculous gift, they knew far less of simple medicine than he had learned. Perhaps the training he had scorned since coming to the Empire and finding the higher art would serve him now.

  A glance at Balsamon, though, showed him the Videssian healer-priest was right. The patriarch lay awkwardly crumpled on his left side. His face wore an unsurprised expression, but his eyes were set and empty; a thin trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth and fouled his beard. His chest did not rise or fall. The shaft that had struck him down was buried almost to the feathers, a few digits to the left of his breastbone. Gorgidas knelt to take his wrist, but knew he would find no pulse.

  The physician looked toward the battle line. He knew the power of nomad bows, but it would have taken a prodigious shot to reach this far. Then he stiffened. Viridovix had told tales of such archery—and of arrows feathered with black. Anyone who thought of Avshar as sorcerer alone made the fatal mistake of forgetting what a warrior he was.

  The reverse also held … and now the imperials’ shield had been snatched away. Springing to his feet in alarm, Gorgidas cried to the men around him, “Are any of you wizards as well as healers?”

  Several nodded. The Greek had time to say, “Then look to yourself, for Avshar is—” He never got “unleashed” out of his mouth. All but one of the healer-priests who were also sorcerers toppled as if bludgeoned. Some got out gasps or choked screams; others simply fell, horror on their faces, their mouths twisted in agony.

  The last healer, stronger than his fellows, stood swaying a good two minutes, a fox cub facing a dragon. Tears streamed down his cheeks; after a moment they were tears of blood. He pounded his temples with his fists, as if to relieve unbearable pressure inside his head. Then his eyes rolled up, and he dropped beside Balsamon’s corpse.

  Wizards went down one by one all along the Videssian line, broken under Avshar’s savage onslaught. A couple of the mightiest held onto life and sanity, but that was as much as they could do; they had no strength to ward the army.

  Gorgidas felt the tide of battle turning. Suddenly the imperials were uncertain and afraid, the Yezda full of fresh courage. The Greek drew the shortsword Gaius Philippus had given him and ran for the front line. The veteran had been wrong; it looked like he was going to have some fighting to do after all.

  Had Avshar been a cat, he would have purred. He rested his bow on his knee, watching consternation spread through the Videssian army like ink through clear water or black clouds across the sun. He ground another sorcerer between the millstones of his wizardry and felt the man’s spirit fade and die. It was easy, without Balsamon. He patted the bow affectionately.

  “For thy gifts, Skotos, I give thee thank
s,” he whispered. He thought for a moment, considering what to do next. Magic could only win so much more for him now. As long as he kept up the killing pressure against the sorcerers who still opposed him, he was limited to minor spells on the side. But if he let them go to work some greater cantation, they might somehow find a way to block it. Battle magic, even his battle magic, was tricky.

  Let it be the smaller sorceries, then, he decided. They would be enough to panic the imperials, who would surely see them as the forerunners of worse. And that would give his soldiers the battle; already they were pushing forward, sensing their enemies’ discomfiture.

  The wizard-prince put away his bow and drew his long, straight sword. He wanted no doubt about who was going to cut down Thorisin Gavras. With Emperor—two Emperors!—and patriarch fallen to his hand, Videssos would learn who its rightful master was. He briefly regretted not having Balsamon to sacrifice to his god on the altar of the High Temple in the capital, but no help for that.

  His eyes gleamed. There would be plenty of victims.

  Being at the forefront of the fighting, Marcus sensed the advantage slipping away from the imperials even before the shift became obvious to Gorgidas. The center held steady, and far off on the right wing Arigh was crumpling the Yezda facing him. But the Videssians themselves wavered as the news of Balsamon’s fall spread; it was as though some of their heart had gone with him.

  The tribune wished Mourtzouphlos was back where he belonged. Thanks to his own vainglory, the noble was not cast down by the loss of the patriarch, and could have inspired regiments of wobblers by his example. His reckless dash through the Yezda line, though, left him in the middle of troops who needed no incentive.

  As he had at Maragha, Scaurus marveled at the steadfastness of the Halogai. They bore a burden worse than the legionaries’, for the main force of Avshar’s Makuraner lancers concentrated on them and on the Emperor they protected. Yet they stood firm against the armored horsemen, their axes working methodically, as if they were hewing timber rather than men. Whenever one went down, another tramped forward to take his place.

  They sang as they fought, a slow chant in their own tongue that reminded the tribune of waves breaking on a rocky, windswept beach. The music had to be strong to reach him so; he was half baked in his cuirass, his face a dusty mask runneled by sweat. And this flat, hot plain had never known the touch of the ocean and never would.

  Thinking such thoughts, Marcus was almost cut down by a Yezda’s saber. He jerked his head away at the last possible instant. Viridovix clucked reproachfully. “There’s better times nor this for smelling the pretty flowers, Roman dear.”

  “You’re right,” the tribune admitted. Then they both failed to give the battle their full attention; the druids’ stamps on their blades came to flaming life at the same time. “Avshar!” Marcus exclaimed. A couple of hundred yards to the rear, Gorgidas was yelling his futile warning.

  Cries of fright rose from the imperials as the wizard-prince smashed their magicians like worms under his feet. Through the alarm and the din of battle, Scaurus heard Thorisin Gavras shouting, “Stand fast! Stand fast!” The Emperor did not sound panicked, or even much upset. From his voice, it might have been an order in a parade-ground drill.

  His coolness helped bring the army back to itself. Seeing their leader unfazed, the soldiers borrowed courage from him and fought back. Again the Yezda were checked.

  Viridovix glanced at his sword. The druids’ marks were still glowing, and getting brighter. He shook his head gloomily. “Let ’em be brave whilst they can, puir sods. There’s worse coming, sure and there is.”

  At first Marcus thought the buzzing that filled his head was a product of his exhaustion. Then the Haloga next to him broke off his song to growl something foul and slap at himself. A moment later another did the same, and a legionary, and yet another Haloga.

  The imperial guard wiped his hand on his tunic. He noticed Scaurus looking at him. “Damned flies,” he said with a sour grin. “Vorse t’an arrows, I t’ink sometimes.”

  The tribune nodded; bugs were always one of the small torments of the field. He had not been bitten himself, but he could see the big black flies droning around as they darted from one victim to the next.

  Their bites were almost impossible to ignore, as a Roman found to his misfortune. Stung unexpectedly in a tender spot, he could not stop the reflex that made him clap his hand to it. The Yezda he was facing, untroubled by the cloud of insects, sworded him down.

  Since the flies did not harass Scaurus, he took some time to realize how rare his protection was. Hardly an imperial was not swatting frantically or trying with all his might not to because he was locked in a fight for his life. And all their opponents shared the immunity that one nomad had enjoyed.

  When the tribune recognized that, he knew with grim clarity where the blame lay. Avshar had worked grander magics, he thought, but hardly a more devilish one. The flies were hard enough for Thorisin’s men to take; they robbed them of their concentration and gave their Yezda foes an edge. That first legionary was far from the only soldier to pay dearly for a second’s involuntary lapse.

  But the effect on the Videssian army’s animals was ten times worse. There is no way to school a horse against a pain striking out of nowhere. Beast after beast squealed and reared or ran wild, leaving its rider, even if unstung himself, easy meat for a Yezda on a pony under control.

  Thrown into sudden confusion, the imperials began to waver again. This time Thorisin had trouble steadying them. It was all he could do to keep his seat; his bay was bucking and plunging like any other fly-tormented beast.

  He would not let himself be tossed. As he forced the stallion to yield to his will, he kept up the shouts of encouragement he had been giving all along: “Come on, you bastards, will you let a few bugs bugger you? Tomorrow you can scratch; today’s for fighting!”

  His cheers and similar words from a score of stubborn officers here and there along the line helped, but it was as if the Videssians were battling in the midst of a sandstorm blowing full in their faces. Each Yezda thrust was harder to contain, and those thrusts came ever more often.

  Belong long, Scaurus thought as he cut at a nomad, the Yezda would find a gap or force one, and that would end everything.

  But Avshar did not see anything that looked like victory. He had thought to sweep everything before him, and he was not succeeding in that aim. True, the imperials were giving ground on the wings, but not much, and their center remained unbudged. In that part of the field his plague of flies was failing. Gavras’ infantry had the resolve to fight on despite them, and the horses of the Namdaleni were so heavily caparisoned that the biting insects could hardly reach their hides.

  The wizard-prince clenched his jagged teeth as he watched his foes hold yet another attack. He had labored more than half a century to forge this latest weapon; he would not let it turn in his hand. His war on Videssos had cost too many years, too many defeats, for him to bear another. If for once his magic was stretched too thin, raw force would have to serve.

  He turned to the messenger beside him. “Fetch me Nogruz and Kaykaus.” The Makuraner generals came quickly. Nogruz, had things gone differently in his grandfather’s time, might have been King of Kings of Makuran, but he bowed his head to Avshar. He was proud, able, and ruthless, a better servant even than Varatesh, the wizard-prince thought, and Kaykaus almost his match.

  Avshar pointed at the sunburst standard still proudly flying to mark Thorisin Gavras’ station. “Gather your men together—you see your target. We will shatter their best.” He drew his sword. “I shall head the charge myself.”

  A slow smile lit Nogruz’s lean, aquiline features. “I will guard your side,” he said.

  “And I.” That was Kaykaus, though ragged bandages wrapped his shoulder and thigh. The great nobles of Makuran had a tradition of enmity with the Empire older than Avshar’s vendetta. Any tool that came to hand, the wizard-prince thought, and made his preparations.r />
  The Halogai roared in derision when the horsemen they had been fighting all day drew back, but they were too battle-wise to go lumbering in pursuit. Foot soldiers who chased cavalry asked to be cut off and slaughtered. Instead they leaned on their axes and rested, crushing flies, gulping wine or water from canteens, binding up wounds, and fanning at themselves to cool down before the battle began again.

  Marcus stood with them, panting and wishing he could shed his mail shirt. As often happened in hard fighting, he had picked up several small wounds without knowing it: his cheek, his right forearm—cutting across an old scar—and on his right thigh just above his knee. When he noticed them, they began to hurt. He also realized that he stank.

  Viridovix looked out at the enemy. “Bad cess for us, they’re not through at all, at all,” he sighed, wiping sweat from his face. Sunburn and exertion combined to make him as florid as Zeprin the Red.

  He rubbed dirt in the palm of his hand, spat, rubbed again, then tested his sword grip. “Och, better.”

  The Makurani formed themselves into a great wedge aimed straight at the heart of Thorisin’s army. There were more of them than Scaurus had thought. He mouthed an oath that was part prayer, part curse, when he saw the double lightning-bolt banner move to the point of the wedge.

  The Emperor’s standard came forward, too, and Gavras with it. This fight he would lead from the front. “The last throw of the dice,” Marcus said to no one in particular.

  A trumpet wailed in a minor key. The Makuraners shouted Avshar’s name. Those who still had unshattered lances swung them down. The rest brandished sabers or shook their fists.

  The Halogai and legionaries tensed to receive the charge. Far to the right, Scaurus heard Gaius Philippus bellowing orders and had a moment to feel glad the veteran was still in action. Then that mournful trumpet cried again, and Avshar’s horsemen thundered toward the imperial army’s center.