Swords of the Legion (Videssos)

by Harry Turtledove

  Scaurus’ mouth went drier even than the day’s thirsty work called for. He had faced cavalry charges before, and never wanted to see another. The greatest and most frightening difference between the Roman and Videssian arts of war was the stirrup and what it did for cavalry. Here the horse was the killing force, not the foot.

  Brave as a terrier, Laon Pakhymer tried to lead his light-armed Khatrishers in a spoiling attack on the wedge, but the Yezda with whom they were already hotly engaged would not be shaken off. Pakhymer had to pull back quickly to keep his regiment from getting surrounded.

  The Namdalener countercharge was something else again. The islanders’ commander, a big burly man named Hovsa whom Scaurus barely knew, had no intention of receiving Avshar’s assault with his own knights motionless; the momentum of their chargers was as important a weapon as their lanceheads. They slammed through the Yezda who darted out to bar their path and crashed into the right side of the Makuraner wedge close to its apex.

  The noise of the collision was like an earthquake in an ironmonger’s shop. The Namdaleni drove deep into the ranks of their opponents, thrusting Makurani from the saddle, overbearing their horses, and hewing them down with great, sweeping swordstrokes.

  Provhos Mourtzouphlos unhesitatingly threw the survivors of his daredevil band after the knights from the Duchy. He despised and distrusted them, but he was too good a soldier not to see what needing doing.

  The islanders and Videssians staggered the wedge and shoved it leftward. But the Makurani, no matter the leader they served, were warriors in their own right. They fought back ferociously, using their greater numbers to contain the imperial horse while their attack went home near the join of the legionaries and Halogai.

  The first few ranks of infantry tumbled like ninepins, spitted on lances or ridden down by the Makurani, a fate Marcus barely escaped. He was spun off his feet; an iron-shod hoof thudded into the ground an inch from his face, flinging dirt in his eyes. He stabbed blindly upward. His blade pierced flesh, though it was almost ripped from his fingers. The wounded horse squealed. Its rider cried out in alarm and then in pain as the beast fell on top of him.

  The tribune gained his feet, slashing wildly in all directions. He was not the only one to have got a blow in; there were horses with empty saddles and unhorsed lancers trying to rise and to keep from being trampled by their own comrades.

  A few feet from him, a legionary was using a hoarded pilum to fend off a Makuraner. With his last strength, a dying Haloga hamstrung the lancer’s horse. As it toppled, the Roman trooper drove his spear through the Makuraner’s neck.

  It could not have been more than twenty paces back to where the imperial foot was fighting to hold a battered line, but it seemed as many miles. Scaurus and the legionary fought back to back as they worked their way through the press. A Makuraner raked the tribune with a spurred heel. He yelped and hit the man in the face with the crossguard of his blade, being too nearly crushed for anything else.

  A stone, thrown or perhaps kicked up by a horse, rang off the side of his helmet. He lurched and almost went down again, but then hard hands were pulling him and his companion away from the enemy and inside the imperials’ shield-wall.

  Though the Romans and Halogai were still being pushed back, they did not give way to panic. They knew they were done for if they broke. Gladii and pila thrust out between big scuta with drilled precision. The Halogai were not singing any more, but they kept chopping away with axes and broadswords, overhand now to get the most benefit from their round wooden shields. Where the fighting was fiercest, they and the Romans were inextricably mixed—any man standing after the Makuraner charge helped his mates without looking to see if they were blond or swarthy.

  They had blunted the point of Avshar’s wedge, but were no more able than the Namdaleni and Videssians to stop it. The wizard-prince cut down trooper after trooper. The sight of his eyes blazing in that ancient face chilled the blood of the boldest and left them easy meat, but he would have been deadly without the fear he created. His charger, a trained war-horse, shattered shields and bones with its hooves, while he swung his long heavy sword like a schoolmaster’s switch.

  His men followed him from fear, not affection, but they followed. The distance between Skotos’ bloody banner and the imperial sunburst narrowed. Little by little, the wizard-prince forced his attack back in the direction from which it had been pushed. “First thy brother, Gavras, then thy priest—now thee, and Videssos with thee!” he cried.

  The Emperor brandished his lance in defiance and urged his mount toward Avshar, but the big bay could not get through the tight-packed, struggling foot soldiers ahead.

  He was not the only one seeking the wizard-prince. Marcus sidled along the line, now managing one step, now two or three, now having to stand and fight. He bawled Avshar’s name over and over, but his voice was lost in the cries around him.

  Viridovix was not far away, though the impact of the charge had swept him and the tribune apart. He had his own war cry. It meant nothing to the troopers by him, but he did not care. “Seirem!” he shouted. “For Seirem!”

  A pair of Makurani who had lost their horses came at him. He parried one saber cut, then turned the next with his shield. The Makurani moved to take him from either side. His head swiveled as he desperately looked for a way to deal with one before the other could kill him.

  Then one of them collapsed with a groan, hamstrung from behind. Viridovix sprang at the other. They slashed at each other, curved sword ringing against straight. The Gaul was stronger and quicker. He beat down the Makuraner’s guard and felled him with a stroke that half severed his head.

  He whirled to make sure of the other Makuraner, but that one was down for good, the legionary who had dealt with him already fighting someone else. He was in trouble, too, for he had no shield. Viridovix rushed to his aid. Together they managed to force the enemy horseman back among his comrades.

  “Indeed and I thank you,” the Gaul said. “ ’Twas a rare nasty spot, that.”

  “Think nothing of it,” answered his rescuer, a spare man of about his own age with a beard going white. “Even Herakles can’t fight two, as the saying goes.”

  “Och, tha daft kern of a Greek, what’re you doing here? Tend to your wounded.”

  “Someone else would be tending your corpse if I had been,” Gorgidas retorted with a toss of his head.

  Having no ready response, Viridovix ducked down to strip a fallen Makuraner of his shield, then handed it to Gorgidas. It was a horseman’s target, small, round, and faced with boiled leather—not much for a foot soldier, but better than nothing. The Greek had a moment to grunt his thanks before the struggle picked up again.

  Moving crab-fashion, Marcus had worked to within thirty feet or so of Avshar. In the crush, the wizard-prince gave no sign of knowing he was there; Wulghash’s glamour still veiled his sword. It was all hard fighting now. The lancers at the thin end of the Makuraner wedge were the pick of the army; getting past each one was a fresh challenge, with finesse as important as brute strength.

  Or so the tribune thought. But then, quite suddenly, several horses went crashing down. Makurani on Avshar’s left, the opposite side from Scaurus, shouting in alarm. Above their cries he heard someone bellowing like a wild bull. Roaring in berserker fury, his axe hewing a swathe of death ahead of him, Zeprin the Red hurled himself toward Avshar.

  Only one rider was left between him and the wizard-prince—a noble in silvered corselet and gilded helm. He cut at Zeprin. Marcus saw the blow land, but the Haloga took no notice of it. He swung his axe in a glittering arc. The noble stared in disbelieving horror at the spouting stump of his wrist. The next stroke caved in his cuirass and pitched him from his horse, dead.

  “Kaykaus!” the Makurani cried; a name, the tribune thought.

  Zeprin cared not at all. With another incoherent yell, he rushed on Avshar, his gore-splattered axe upraised.

  It was too late for the wizard-prince to twist and meet him
weapon to weapon, but Avshar was truly the greatest sorcerer of the age. Without letting go of any of his own spells, he flawlessly executed the complex magic that had slain the Videssian who met him in single combat. Fiery light stabbed again from his fingers.

  But the Haloga, though he staggered, did not fall in flames. His battle-madness and thirst for vengeance proofed him against sorcery. He recovered; his axe rose and fell. Avshar met the blow with his sword, but could do no more than turn it slightly. Instead of splitting his skull, it fell square on his charger’s neck.

  The beast was dead before its legs went out from under it. Seeing it go down, the imperials raised a mighty cheer. “Avshar is fallen!” a legionary bleeding from a slashed cheek screamed in Scaurus’ ear.

  The tribune shouted too, hoarsely. The cry stuck in his throat when the wizard-prince kicked free of the stirrups, lit rolling, and gained his feet before Zeprin could finish him.

  The Haloga rushed at him. Marcus scrambled to help, but they were already fighting before he could get close. Zeprin’s first wild stroke met only air. Full of insane strength, he sent his axe whistling in another deadly arc. Avshar parried, though the force of the cut nearly tore his blade from his hand.

  Yet he was laughing, in spite of his fearful plight. “If thou’dst kill a man, wilting,” he mocked, “it should be done so—and so—and so!” Each slash went home almost faster than the eye could follow. Blood spurted after every one. Any of them would have dropped a normal warrior, especially the last, a frightful cut to the side of Zeprin’s neck.

  In his berserker rage, the Haloga did not seem to feel them. He waded ahead once more, and this time Avshar bellowed in pain and fury as the axe lopped the little finger from his left hand as neatly as if it had been on the block. He bunched the hand into a fist to stanch the flow of blood.

  After that he fought silently, but with no less ferocity. He dealt three blows for every slash of Zeprin’s, and most of his landed; the Haloga had forgotten defense. His arm drawn back for another chop at the wizard-prince, Zeprin paused in sudden confusion. A torrent of blood streamed from his mouth and nose. His madly staring eyes clouded; the axe slipped from his fingers. His armor clattering about him, he swayed and fell.

  “Is there another?” Avshar cried, waving his sword on high and setting his booted foot on Zeprin’s neck in token of victory. He strode forward, confident no imperial would dare face him. Then he halted in his tracks, his fleshless face contorted in angry surprise. “Thou!” he hissed.

  “Me.” Winded and afraid, Scaurus had breath but for the one word. He was so tired he could hardly hold up his shield. Unlike the time so long ago in the Hall of the Nineteen Couches, Avshar had no buckler. This time the Roman cared nothing for chivalry. He hefted his sword. “No farther,” he said.

  He thought with dread that Avshar would try to overwhelm him at the first onset, but the wizard-prince hung back, letting the tribune gather himself. Of course, Scaurus realized—he wonders where I’ve sprung from, for he didn’t sense my blade. He risked turning his head to look for Viridovix, but could not find the Gaul.

  Avshar’s hesitation lasted no more than a handful of heartbeats. When he did advance on the Roman, he moved more warily then he had against Zeprin. Having crossed swords with Marcus before, he knew the tribune was no spitfire seeking only to attack—and he had a healthy respect for the Gallic longsword.

  The first clash of arms showed Scaurus he was in over his head. He was close to exhaustion, while Avshar drew from a seemingly unending well of strength. The tribune took blow after blow on his scutum; Avshar’s keen blade bit into the bronze facing of the shield and chewed at the wood beneath. The wizard-prince easily evaded or beat aside the thrusts he managed in reply.

  They dueled alone. No Makurani came to Avshar’s aid; had he been a different sort of commander, Marcus would not have lasted long. But the imperials as well as his own men feared the wizard-prince. None of them had the courage to join the Roman against him. As if the two sides were both reproaching themselves, they fought each other harder than ever.

  To Gorgidas, who was directly in back of the tribune, Marcus seemed like Aias battling Hektor in the Iliad—outmatched, baffled, but too mulish to yield an inch except by dying. The Greek shoved Viridovix in the back. “By the gods, hurry! He can’t hold him off forever.”

  “Ha’ care, tha sot!” Viridovix yelped, wriggling like a snake to evade a Makuraner’s slash. “Is it trying to get me killed y’are?” His backhand reply caught his foe in the right shoulder. The Makuraner dropped his saber and started to run. A Haloga guardsman cut him nearly in half from behind.

  “Hurry!” Gorgidas insisted again. He stabbed at the lancer who loomed in front of him, pinked the rider’s horse. Its flailing hooves proved as dangerous as the Makuraner’s long spear. The Greek skipped back just in time.

  Up ahead, Marcus was still on his feet, though he blearily wondered how. Avshar played with him as a kitten toys with a mouse, giving torment but holding off the blow that would end it. Every so often he would inflict another gash and smile his carnivore smile. “Escape me now, an thou canst!” he gloated in high good humor. He relished victory over the tribune almost as much as if it had been Gavras and was in no hurry to end his pleasure.

  Not all the blood on his robes and cuirass came from his amputated finger; even a mouse can have fangs. But his injuries were of no importance, while Marcus bled in a score of places.

  After some endless time the wizard-prince exclaimed, “Let the farce be done at last,” and leaped at Scaurus. His armored shoulder slammed against the Roman’s shield and bowled him over.

  As he had been trained, Marcus kept the scutum between his enemy and himself. Avshar’s sword came smashing down. The tribune felt boards split under that crushing impact. The next stroke, he knew, would be aimed with cunning, not blind blood lust. He waited for the steel to enter his flesh.

  Then he heard the wizard-prince cry out in wrath and turn from him to meet a new foe. At the same time, the druids’ stamps on the tribune’s sword flashed so brilliantly that he screwed his eyes shut, dazzled by the explosion of light. Above him, Viridovix’ blade was another brand of flame. The Gaul roared, “Here, you murthering omadhaun, use your sword on an upright man.”

  He traded savage cuts with Avshar, driving the wizard-prince from Scaurus. That was not what the tribune had intended. “Wait!” he shouted, getting to one knee and then to his feet.

  But Viridovix would not wait. With Avshar in front of him at last, his rage consumed him, just as Zeprin’s had. The plans he and Scaurus had made for this moment were swept away by a red torrent of fury. To wound, to maim, to kill … had Avshar been unarmed, Viridovix would have thrown his sword aside to rend him with his hands.

  If Gaius Philippus had taught Marcus anything, it was to keep his wits about him in combat. He rushed after the Gaul, whose wild onslaught had forced Avshar back a dozen paces. At every step he took, his sword and Viridovix’ glowed brighter. The magic raging in his blade seemed to lend him fresh vigor, as if he was becoming a conduit through which some force larger than himself might flow.

  The hammerstrokes Viridovix aimed at the wizard-prince bespoke the same sudden rush of strength. But Avshar, indomitable as a mountain, was yielding ground no more. His bodily power and swordsmanship matched the Gaul’s, and in force of will he was superior.

  Nor did his spells falter as he fought. He maintained his hold over the wizards in the imperial army, and his plague of flies still tormented his foes and their horses. Thorisin Gavras’ beast, maddened by scores of bites, squealed and bucked and would advance no further in spite of the Emperor’s curses and his spurs.

  At last Avshar’s men began to move to help him. One closed with Scaurus, a solidly built warrior who cut at the Roman’s legs. To Marcus he was an obstacle, no more. The tribune parried, countered in a similar low line. His point tore open the Makuraner’s thigh just below his mail shirt. The man gasped, stumbled, and fell, grabbin
g at his leg. Marcus raced past him.

  Avshar’s deadly eyes flicked to the tribune. “Come ahead, then,” he said, shifting his stance slightly. “Both of you together do not suffice against me.”

  Marcus stopped short. The wizard-prince’s withering laugh flayed him. The tribune’s sword darted forth. Avshar’s moved to beat it aside, but Scaurus had not thrust at him. Instead, quite gently, his blade touched Viridovix’.

  The fabric of the world seemed to stretch very tight. The pounding of the tribune’s heart was louder than all the Yezda drums. Never since the Celtic blades brought the Romans to Videssos had he hazarded the ultimate magic in them. Viridovix’ sea-green eyes were wide and staring. He had agreed to Scaurus’ plan, but it daunted him now. Who could tell to what strange land the druids’ magic would sweep them next?

  The same thought screamed in Scaurus’ mind, but if he took Avshar with him he did not care. His greatest fear was that the spells which had been woven to ward Gaul would not protect Videssos. Yet the Empire was now truly his homeland, and Viridovix’ long service for it argued that he, too, held it dear.

  The wait between hope and dread could only have lasted for an instant. Avshar was still twisting to redirect his lunge when a torrent of golden flame leaped from his opponents’ swords. Feeling the power of the unleashed sorcery, he sprang backward, throwing his own blade aside to shape passes with both hands. His mouth worked soundlessly as he raced through a spell to defend himself against the druids’ charms.

  Scaurus looked for the flame to form a great glowing dome, as it had in the blood-soaked Gallic clearing four years before—a dome to carry away Avshar, the flower of his army, and, all too likely, the tribune and Viridovix as well. But in Gaul no opposing magic had been operating. Here the power released from the two swords was hardly enough to contain the chiefest of Videssos’ enemies; their sorcerous fire surrounded him in light but went no further.