The Tale of Krispos

by Harry Turtledove

  Still, if he did succeed in annexing—reannexing, he reminded himself—Kubrat, the goodwill of the locals would be worth something. “Aye, join us,” he told the nomads. “Help drive the invaders out of Kubrat.” He did not say out of your land. None of the Kubratoi noticed the fine distinction.

  Most of the nomads who saw the flying column continued to avoid it. But several more groups came in, so that by the end of the day close to a hundred Kubratoi camped with the Videssians. Their furs and boiled-leather cuirasses contrasted oddly with the linen surcoats and iron shirts the imperials wore. Their ponies also looked like nothing much next to the bigger, handsomer horses that came from south of the mountains. But those ponies hadn’t breathed hard while they kept up with the column, and Krispos knew the Kubratoi could fight. He was glad to have them.

  “We can’t be more than three or four hours away from Harvas,” Krispos said to Sarkis, “but we haven’t seen a single Haloga. He doesn’t know we’re here.”

  “So it seems, Your Majesty.” Sarkis’ white teeth flashed in the firelight, very bright against his thick black beard and mustaches. “I said a couple of years ago, when I first served under you, that things wouldn’t be dull. Who else would have found a way to sneak up on the nastiest wizard the world’s ever seen?”

  “I hope we are sneaking up on him,” Trokoundos said. “My feeling of being sought grows ever stronger. It worries me, and yet surely Harvas would assail us if he knew we were here. I wish Zaidas were along, to tell me all my fears are so much moonshine. The good god grant that I hold Harvas befooled yet a little longer.”

  “So may it be,” Krispos and Sarkis said in the same breath. They both sketched the sun-sign.

  Sarkis added, “This also shows the risk of depending too much on magic. If Harvas had his scouts properly posted, he’d already know we were loose in his country.”

  “It’s not his country,” Krispos said. “It’s ours.” He explained the thoughts he’d had when the first Kubrati party attached itself to the column, finishing, “We’ll never have another chance like this to bring Kubrat back under our rule.”

  Sarkis let out a soft, approving grunt. Trokoundos cocked his head to one side and studied Krispos. “You’ve grown, Your Majesty,” he said. “You’ve come into the long view of things you need to make a proper Avtokrator. Who but a man with that long view would say that taking Kubrat, which has been a thorn in our flesh for three centuries now, is bringing it back under our rule?”

  Both pleased and amused, Krispos said, “The good god willing, I’ve learned a bit from that long past of ours.” He yawned. “Right now, this whole day seems a very long past all by itself. It’s hard to remember when I’ve been out of the saddle except to squat by the side of the road or to sleep, which is what I’m going to do now.”

  “This is a sound strategy,” Sarkis said, his voice filled with such military seriousness that Krispos came to attention and saluted. Then, laughing, he went off to spread out his blankets.

  The next morning the troopers checked their swords’ edges and made sure their arrows were straight and well fletched, as they did when they were certain they would be going into battle before long. They leaped onto their horses and stormed westward. Krispos knew the only thing that made veterans hurry toward a fight was confidence they would win.

  All that kept his own confidence from soaring equally was Trokoundos’ attitude. The mage kept looking back over his shoulder, as if he expected to see Harvas on the horse right behind him. “We are sought,” he said over and over again, his voice haunted.

  But despite his forebodings, neither Krispos nor any of the soldiers in the flying column had any sense that Harvas knew they were there. He’d posted no guards, not in land he thought his own. And there, ahead in the distance, lay the northern mouth of the pass through the mountains in which the wizard and his Halogai were about to be bottled.

  “Unfurl our banner,” Krispos said. The imperial standard, gold sunburst on blue, fluttered free at the head of the column.

  But before the men could even begin to raise a cheer, Trokoundos went white as milk. “We are found,” he whispered. His eyes were huge and frightened.

  “Too late,” Krispos said fiercely, trying to restore his spirit. “We have Harvas now, not the other way round.” The words were hardly out of his mouth before a wall of blackness sprang up in front of the column. It stretched north and south, far as the eye could see. The troopers in the lead quickly reined in to keep from running into it headlong.

  It did not dishearten Krispos. “There, you see?” he said to Trokoundos. “It’s the same paltry trick he used to slow down the army south of the mountains. One touch from you then and the whole silly wall just disappeared. Does he think to fool us the same way twice?”

  Trokoundos visibly revived. “Aye, you’re right, Your Majesty. He must indeed be panicked, to forget he already used this illusion against us. And a panicked sorcerer is a weakened sorcerer. Let me get rid of this phantasm, and then on to the attack.”

  The soldiers in earshot yelled and clapped. They swatted Trokoundos on the shoulder as his smooth-gaited gray approached the barrier with mincing steps. The mage dismounted a few feet away, walked straight up to it. He stretched out a hand, leaned forward, shouted, “Begone!”

  Far, far off in the distance, Krispos thought he heard a woman’s voice crying, “No! Wait!” He shook his head, annoyed at his ears’ playing tricks on him. In any case, the cry came too late. Trokoundos’ forefinger had met the wall of blackness.

  As they had before, lightnings crackled round the mage. Men who had not been close by when he pierced the barrier south of the mountains cried out in alarm and dismay. Krispos sat smiling on his horse, waiting for the barrier to dissolve.

  Trokoundos screamed, a raw, wordless sound of terror and agony. His spine spasmed and arched backward, as if it were a bow being bent. He screamed again, this time intelligibly, “Trap!” He flung his arms out wide. His back bent still farther, impossibly far. He cried out one last time, again without words.

  His hands writhed. The motions reminded Krispos of sorcerous passes. If they were, they did no good. With a sound like that of a cracking knuckle but magnified a thousand times, Trokoundos’ backbone broke. He fell to the ground, limp and dead.

  The black wall—Harvas Black-Robe’s black wall—remained.

  Along with his soldiers, Krispos stared in consternation at Torkoundos’ crumpled corpse. What would happen to him now, with his own chief wizard slain and Harvas all too aware of exactly where he was? You’ll die in whatever dreadful way Harvas wants you to die was the first answer that sprang to mind. He cast about for a better one, but did not find any.

  Shouts came from the right flank of the column. The Kubratoi who had briefly attached themselves to Krispos’ force were galloping off as fast as their little ponies would take them. “Shall we pursue?” Sarkis asked.

  “No, let them go,” Krispos answered wearily. “You can’t blame them for changing their minds about our chances, can you?”

  “No, Majesty, not when I’ve just changed my own.” Sarkis managed a grin, but not of the cheery sort—it looked more like the snarl of a hunting beast brought to bay. “What do we do now?”

  To his relief, Krispos did not have to answer that at once. A trooper from the rear guard rode up, saluted, and said, “Your Majesty, there’s a party of maybe fifteen or twenty horsemen coming up on us from behind.”

  “More Kubratoi?” Krispos asked. “They’ll turn tail when they see the mess we’re in.” His eyes flicked to Trokoundos’ body again. Soon, he knew, he would feel the loss of a friend as well as that of a mage. He had no time for that, not now, not yet.

  The trooper said, “Your Majesty, they don’t look like Kubratoi, or ride like ’em, either. They look like Videssians, is what they look like.”

  “Videssians?” Krispos’ rather heavy eyebrows drew together over his nose. Had Mammianos sent men after him for some reason? If he had, would
Harvas have spotted the party because it was not warded? And could the evil wizard have been led from that party to the flying column Krispos led? The chain of logic made all too much sense. Cold anger in his voice, Krispos went on, “Bring them here to me, this instant.’

  “Aye, Your Majesty.” The trooper wheeled his horse and set spurs to it. The animal squealed a loud protest but quickly went into a gallop. Clods of dirt flew up from its hooves as it bounded away.

  Krispos fought down the urge to ride after the fellow, making himself wait. Before long the trooper returned with the band of which he’d spoken. By their horses, by their gear, they were Videssians, as he’d said. As they drew closer, Krispos’ frown deepened. He recognized none of them that he could see, though some were hidden behind others. Surely Mammianos would have sent out someone he knew.

  “Who are you people?” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  The answer came from the back of the group. “Majesty, we are come to give you aid, as we may.”

  Krispos stared. So did every man who heard that light, clear voice or saw the beardless, sculptured profile beneath that conical cavalry helm. Tanilis might don chain mail, but no one anywhere would ever mistake her for a man.

  With an effort, Krispos found his own voice. “My lady, the good god knows you’re welcome and more than welcome. But how did you track us here? Trokoundos was sure he’d screened off the column from sorcerers’ senses. Of course, Trokoundos proved not to know everything there was to know.” His mouth twisted; he jerked his chin toward the mage’s corpse.

  Tanilis’ eyes moved with his gesture. A slim finger sketched the sun-circle above her left breast. She said, “Honor to his skill, for had I depended on finding your soldiers, I should not have been aware of their true path till far too late. But I sought you with my magic, Your Majesty; our old ties of friendship made that possible where the other would have failed.”

  “Aye, friendship,” Krispos said slowly. Their ties had been more intimate than that, back a decade before when he’d wintered in Opsikion, helping Iakovitzes recover from a badly broken leg. He studied her. She was ten years older than he, or a bit more; her son Mavros had been only five years younger. Some of her years showed, but not many. Most of them had only added character to a beauty that had once been almost beyond needing it.

  She sat her horse quietly, waiting under his scrutiny. She did not wait long; that had never been her way. “However skilled your mage was, in Harvas Black-Robe he found one stronger than himself. Do you think Harvas sits idly on the other side of that wall he made, that wall black as his robes, black as his heart?”

  “I very much fear he doesn’t,” Krispos said, “but with Trokoundos slain, how can I answer him? Unless…” His voice trailed away.

  “Just so,” Tanilis said. “I tried to warn your wizard, there at the end, but he was too full of himself to hear or heed me.”

  “I heard you,” Krispos exclaimed.

  “I thought you might have. Harvas is also stronger than I am. This I know. I will stand against him all the same, for my Emperor and for my son.” She slid down from her horse and approached the barrier Harvas had set in front of the flying column. After some minutes’ study, she turned back to Krispos. “Considering what you may find on the other side, your warriors would be well advised to form line of battle.”

  “Aye.” Krispos waved. The command ran down the column. The troopers moved smoothly into place. They still sent wary glances toward the black wall, but the routine of having orders to follow soaked up some of their fear.

  Instead of stabbing at the barrier with a peremptory index finger, Tanilis gently touched it with the palm of her hand. Krispos held his breath; his heard pounded as he wondered if the livid lightnings would consume her as they had Trokoundos. The lightnings flashed. Some of the soldiers groaned—they had no great hope for her.

  “Is she mad?” one man said.

  “No, she knows what she’s about,” another answered, his eastern accent hinting that he came from somewhere not far from Opsikion. “That’s the lady Tanilis, that is, mother to Mavros the dead Sevastos and a sorceress in her own right, if the tales be true.” His words went up and down the line, faster than Krispos’ command had: rumors were more interesting than orders.

  Tanilis’ back stiffened, arched…but only a little. “No, Harvas, not now,” she said, so softly Krispos barely heard. “You have already hurt me worse than this.” It was as if she did not fight against whatever torment the black barrier dealt out, but rather accepted it, and in accepting defeated it.

  The wall seemed to sense that. The lightnings blazed ever brighter around Tanilis as it sought to lay her low. But she refused to topple. “No,” she said again, very clearly. Again the lightnings increased, this time to a peak of such brilliance that Krispos had to turn his head away, his eyes watering. “No,” Tanilis said for a third time from the heart of that firestorm.

  Through slitted eyelids, Krispos looked back toward her. She still stood defiant—and all at once the black wall’s force yielded to her stronger will. The lightning ceased; the barrier melted into the thin air from which it had sprung.

  The imperial soldiers cried out in triumph at that. Then, a moment later, they cried out again. The black wall’s vanishing revealed the Halogai who had been advancing on the flying column under its cover. Harvas, too, would have let the barrier disappear, no doubt, but at a time of his own choosing.

  “Forward!” Krispos shouted. “The cry is ‘Mavros’!”

  “Mavros!” the Videssians thundered. They rolled toward Harvas’ Halogai, then rolled over them. The northerners were caught in loose order, confident they would find foes ripe for the slaughter. Some of them turned tail when the downfall of the barrier showed that Krispos’ men were more ready for battle than they. More stood and fought. They followed a wicked leader, but kept their own fierce pride. It availed them nothing. The imperials rode them down, then rode on toward the northern mouth of the pass. “Mavros!” they shouted again and again, and another cry: “Tanilis!”

  “We may yet bottle Harvas up in there,” Sarkis yelled to Krispos, his black eyes snapping with excitement.

  “Aye.” When Krispos’ horse even thought of slowing, he roweled it with his spurs. Normally he was gentle to his mounts, but now he would not willingly lose so much as an instant. A solid line across the outlet to the pass and Harvas’ army was done for.

  The exultation in the thought almost made Krispos drunk. Almost. That army would be done for unless Harvas magicked it free. Despite Tanilis, despite all the mages from the Sorcerers’ Collegium, the possibility remained real. Any time Krispos was tempted to forget it, he had only to think of Trokoundos’ twisted body, now more than a mile behind him.

  He saw the mouth of the pass ahead. Get his men across it and—“Rein in!” he shouted, and followed that with a volley of curses. Harvas’ Halogai were already streaming north out of the trap. Some carried axes at the ready, others bore them over their shoulders. The long files of fighting men were ready for action, unlike the now-shattered band that had been on the way to deal with Krispos’ column.

  “Too many for us to head,” Sarkis said, gauging the enemy’s numbers with a practiced eye.

  “I fear you’re right, worse luck for us,” Krispos answered. “He’s pulled them out just in time. Maybe he could tell when his wall went down, or some such. Even if we can’t keep him there, though, let’s see how much we can hurt his soldiers. They’re giving us their flank for a target.”

  Sarkis nodded and brought up his hand in salute. “Mammianos said you were learning the trade of war. I see he’s right.” The scout commander raised his voice. “Archers!”

  Shouting enthusiastically, the bowmen began to ply their trade. Shooting from horseback did not make for accurate archery, but with a massed target like the one they had, they did not need to be accurate. Halogai screamed; Halogai stumbled; Halogai fell.

  Some of the northerners awkwardly shifted th
eir shields to their right sides to help ward themselves from the arrows that rained down on them. Others, singly and then by troops and companies, rushed toward their tormentors. The archers could not come close to shooting all of them before they closed the gap and began to swing axe and sword. Imperial lancers spurred forward to protect the bowmen. Half a dozen melees developed all along the imperial line. As more and more Halogai poured out of the pass, Krispos’ men found themselves outnumbered.

  “Pull back!” he shouted. “We didn’t come here to take on Harvas’ whole bloody army by ourselves. He’s out of the pass, and that’s what counts. Do you think he can hold all the rest of our own troops out of Kubrat with just a rear guard? Not likely!”

  An army of Halogai would either have ignored Krispos’ order or taken it as a signal to panic. They fought as much for the joy of fighting as to gain advantage. The Videssians were less ferocious and more flexible. They drew back, stinging Harvas’ foot soldiers with more arrows as they did so. The lancers nipped in to cut off and destroy bands of Halogai who pursued with too much spirit. Again and again the Halogai paid in blood to learn that lesson.

  “I don’t think Harvas is leaving much of a rear guard in there,” Sarkis said late that afternoon. By then the running fight had moved close to ten miles into Kubrat; Krispos was hard-pressed to stretch the limited manpower of his column to cover all of Harvas’ army.

  Like wildfire, a cheer ran up the Videssian line from the south. At last it—and the news that caused it—reached Krispos, who was near the northern end of his force as it skirmished with Harvas’ scouts and vanguard. “Our own men are coming up out of the pass!” someone bawled in his ear.