“THERE IT SITS, MASHIZ ITS AIN SELF, AND DAMN ALL WE can do about it,” Viridovix said glumly. He peered through evening twilight toward the Yezda capital from the jumbled hills at the edge of the mountains of Dilbat.
“Aye, one glorious, sweeping charge, and it’s ours,” Pikridios Goudeles said in ringing tones that went poorly with his dirty buckskin tunic and bandaged shoulder. Sour laughter floated up from the edge of the Arshaum camp where the survivors of the Videssian embassy party and their few friends congregated.
Gorgidas found he could not blame the plainsmen for their bitterness toward the imperials. Despite Arigh’s steadfast friendship, most of the nomads felt they had been drawn into a losing campaign for the Empire’s sake. And Mashiz, so close yet utterly unattainable, symbolized their frustration.
The cloud of noxious smoke rising from the granite pyramid in the western part of the city did not hide the throng of yurts and tents and other shelters that daily grew greater as Yezd’s strength flowed in to the capital. Campfires glittered like stars. At its freshest the Arshaum army would have lost to such a host. Fragmented as the plainsmen were, a determined assault would have swept them away.
The Greek wondered why it had not come. After the blows that broke the Arshaum apart, their foes seemed to have lost interest in them. Daily patrols made sure the scattered bands stayed away from Mashiz, but past that they were ignored. The Yezda even let them make contact with each other, though the mountain country was too broken and too poor for them to regroup as a single force.
“Who comes?” Prevalis Haravash’s son barked nervously when an Arshum approached; things were at the point where the imperial trooper from Prista was as leery of his allies as he would have been of the enemy. Then the young sentry relaxed. “Oh, it’s you, sir.”
Arigh leaned against a boulder set into the side of the hill and looked from Goudeles to Viridovix to Skylitzes to Gorgidas to Agathias Psoes. He slammed a fist down on his thigh. “I don’t propose living out my life as an outlaw skulking through these mountains, thinking I’m a hero because I’ve stolen five sheep or an ugly wench.”
“What do you aim to do instead, then?” Psoes asked. The Videssian underofficer had a Roman air of directness to him.
“I don’t know, the wind spirits curse it,” Arigh glared at the winking field of campfires in the distance.
Skylitzes followed his gaze. He said, “If we skirt them, we can ride for the Empire.”
“No,” Arigh said flatly. “Even if I could jolly my men into it, I will not turn away from Mashiz while I can still strike a blow. My father’s ghost would spurn me if I gave up a blood-feud so easily.”
Familiar with the customs of the plains, the Videssian nodded. He tried a different tack. “You would not be abandoning your vendetta, simply getting new allies for it as you did in Erzerum. Seeking the Empire’s aid would bring your soldiers round.”
“That may be so, but I still will not. In Erzerum I was master of the situation. With Thorisin I would be a beggar.”
Gorgidas said, “Gavras is as much Yezd’s enemy as you. It’s not as if you would be forgetting your fight by seeking his aid.”
“No,” Arigh repeated. “Thorisin has his own kingdom to rule; his concerns and mine are different. He might have reason to make peace with Yezd for now—what if the Namdaleni still hang over him, as they did last year? I am too weak to be able to take such chances. They would cost me my last freedom of action. If I had something to offer Gavras, now, something to deal with, it might be different. As is, though …”
He sighed. “You mean well, all of you, but mercenary captain has no more appeal to me than robber chief as a lifelong trade. What will become of my clan, with Dizabul as their khagan? I must find a way back to Shaumkhiil with my people.”
His clipped Arshaum accent added to the urgency of his words. Viridovix marveled at how his friend had grown from a roistering young blood in Videssos to a farsighted chieftain over the course of a year. “Indeed and he’s outgrown me,” the Gaul murmured to himself in surprise. “I’d go for my revenge and be damned to what came next. Och, what a braw prince he’ll make for his people, for he’s ever after thinking on the good o’ them all.”
To Gorgidas, though, Arigh showed the doomed grandeur of a tragic hero. The physician wondered how many defeated lords had been driven into the uplands of Erzerum, vowing to return with victory. But Erzerum was a distant backwater. In Dilbat the Arshaum could only be hunted down.
“What does your shaman say of the omens?” Psoes asked. Having served so long at the edge of the steppe and on it, he was more ready than the other imperials to find value in the nomads’ rites. Skylitzes frowned at him.
“He’s taken them several times and got no meaning from them. Too close to that—” Arigh pointed at the smoking pyramid. He did not need to elaborate. Gorgidas knew the odor that rode those fumes; once he had helped carry corpses from a charred building. Arigh went on, “The very ground is full of pits beneath our feet, Tolui says.”
“Heathen superstition.” Skylitzes’ frown deepened, but he admitted, “One could, I suppose, take that as metaphor for the reek of evil that hangs over Mashiz.” He, too, recognized the stench of burned human flesh; the Videssian army used incendiary mixes fired from catapults.
“Metaphor?” Goudeles raised an eyebrow in mocking surprise. “I’d not thought a bluff soldier type like you would know a metaphor if one strolled up and bit your foot, Lankinos.”
“Then whose ignorance is showing, mine or yours?”
Viridovix drew a tally mark in the air. “A hit, that.” Irritated, Goudeles scowled at him. It irked the bureaucrat that Skylitzes, in his taciturn way, gave as good as he got.
A low, grating sound came from the boulder against which Arigh was leaning. Pebbles and small stones spattered around his feet. He yelped and leaped away. “What’s this? Do the rocks walk in this stinking country?”
“Earthquake!” Rakio said it first, with Gorgidas, Skylitzes, and Goudeles a beat behind. But the ground was not really shaking, and no stones fell anywhere but around the gray granite boulder. Gorgidas bit back a startled exclamation. The boulder itself was quivering, as if alive.
“Meta-whatever, eh?” Arigh said triumphantly to Skylitzes. The Arshaum reached for his sword. “Seems more like an ordinary snare to me. Now to close it on the ones who set it—they aimed too well for their own good this time.” His companions also drew their blades.
After that grinding beginning, the boulder moved more smoothly. “There is a path for it to run in,” Rakio said, pointing. Sure enough, a shallow trench let the great stone move away from the hillside. Blackness showed behind it. “They try to befool us with a secret doorway, eh?” The Yrmido sidled forward on the balls of his feet.
Viridovix started. He remembered Lipoxais the enaree in doomed Targitaus’ tent. The Khamorth shaman had seen fifty eyes, a door in the mountains, and two swords. The first part of the prophecy had proven such a calamity that the Gaul wanted no part of the second.
The opening in the side of the hill was almost wide enough to admit a man. “Whoever it is lurking in there, I’ll cleave him to his navel,” Viridovix cried. He pushed past Rakio, his sword upraised.
As he approached the moving chunk of stone, the marks stamped down the length of his blade came to golden life. “ ‘Ware,” he called to his companions. “It’s Avshar or one of his wizards.”
Behind the stone, someone spoke. “I’m losing it, Scaurus. I thought I just heard that great Gallic chucklehead out there.”
At the familiar rasp, Viridovix had to make a quick grab to keep from dropping his sword. He and Gorgidas traded wild stares. Then the Celt was shoving the stone out with all his strength. The physician rushed up to help him. The stone overbalanced and fell on its side. Blinking against the glare of the campfires, the two Romans and their comrade stumbled out of the tunnel.
With a whoop of joy, Viridovix flung open his arms. Gaius Philippus returned his embrace without a qualm. Marcus, though, flinched at his touch. “A wound,” he explained, courteous even if both he and the senior centurion were bruised, hollow-cheeked, and filthy.
“Phos save me, it is Scaurus,” Pikridios Goudeles whispered. For the first time Gorgidas could remember, he sketched the sun-circle over his heart.
The Greek hardly noticed, nor did he pay attention to Arigh shouting to his men that these were, past all expectation, friends. He needed to be no physician to see the Romans were badly battered. “What are you doing here?” he all but shouted at them as he helped ease them down by a fire.
Neither Scaurus nor Gaius Philippus tried to resist his ministrations. “Khaire,” the tribune said, his voice slow and tired: “Greetings.” Gorgidas had to turn his head to hide tears. No one else in this world could have hailed him in Greek. It was like the tribune to do it, exhausted though he was.
Marcus looked from the physician to Viridovix, still hard pressed to understand he was seeing them. “This is a long way from the steppes,” he managed at last, an inane effort but the best he had in him.
“A long way from Videssos, too,” Gorgidas pointed out. He was also too taken aback to come up with anything deep.
“Is that really you, quack?” Gaius Philippus said. “You look bloody awful with a beard.”
“It’s better than that face-mange you’re sprouting,” the Greek retorted. Gaius Philippus sounded exactly as he always had; it helped Gorgidas believe the Romans were really there in front of him. He also had not lost the knack for getting under the physician’s skin.
The man who had emerged from the tunnel with Scaurus and Gaius Philippus knelt by the tribune. He was a Yezd, Gorgidas saw, an officer from his gear, but dirty even by the slack standards the Greek had grown used to, and with his face bloody. He used the Empire’s tongue, though, with accentless fluency. “Arshaum and Videssians, by whatever gods there be,” he said angrily, looking around. Then, to Marcus: “You know these people?”
Provoked by his rough tone, Viridovix put a hand on his shoulder. “Dinna be havering at him so, you. And who might ye be, anyhow? Is it friend y’are, or gaoler?”
The Yezda knocked the Celt’s hand aside and looked up at him, unafraid. “If you touch me again without my leave, you will see who I am.” The warning was winter-cold. Viridovix’ sword came up a couple of inches.
“He’s a friend,” Marcus said quickly. “He helped us escape. He’s called—” He paused, not sure if Wulghash wanted to make himself known.
“Sharvesh,” the khagan broke in, so smooth the hesitation was imperceptible. “I was taken when Avshar overthrew Wulghash, but I got free. I spent a while wandering the tunnels, then met these two doing the same.” Scaurus admired his presence of mind; but for the name he gave, nothing he said was quite untrue.
Moreover, the news he casually tossed out made everyone forget about him. “Avshar what?” Skylitzes, Goudeles, and Arigh exclaimed, each louder than the next.
Wulghash told the tale, creating the impression that he had been one of his own bodyguards who failed to succumb to the wizard-prince’s sorcery.
“And so Avshar has a firm grip on Mashiz,” he finished. “You are his enemies, yes?” The growl that rose from his listeners was answer enough. “Good. May I beg a horse from you? I have kin to the northwest who may be endangered because of me and I would warn them while I may.”
“Choose any beast we have,” Arigh said at once. “I would have asked you to ride with us, but it’s plain you know your own needs best.”
Wulghash gave a stiff nod of thanks. As he started toward the tethered ponies, Marcus got painfully to his feet, despite Gorgidas’ protests. “Ah—Sharvesh!” he called.
The khagan of Yezd was too shrewd to miss his alias. He turned and waited for the Roman to join him.
“A favor,” Scaurus said, soft enough that only Wulghash could hear. “Treat Viridovix’—he’s the tall man with the red hair and mustaches—treat his sword the same way you did mine, so Avshar cannot follow us by it.”
“Why should I? I did not name him friend. I have no obligation to him.”
“He is my friend.”
“So is Thorisin Gavras, I gather, and I am no friend of his,” Wulghash said coldly. “That argument has no weight with me. And if Avshar pursues you, he cannot come after me. That is how I would have it. No, I will not do what you ask.”
“Then why should you go free now? We could hold you with us.”
“Go ahead. If you think you can wring magic out of me, how can I stop you from trying?” Every line of Wulghash’s body showed his contempt for anyone who would break the bond of friendship. Marcus felt his ears grow hot. After all the khagan had suffered on account of the Romans, he could not force what Wulghash did not want to give.
“Do as you please,” the tribune said, and stepped aside.
A little life came into the khagan’s face. “Were we to meet again one day, you and I, I could wish you were my friend as well as my friend.” Intonation made his meaning clear. He bobbed his head at Scaurus and went off toward the line of horses.
When the Arshaum whose animal he picked protested, Arigh gave the man one of his own ponies as compensation. Satisfied, the nomad gave Wulghash a leg up. He had no trouble riding bareback. With a wave to Arigh, he kicked the horse into a trot and rode up the valley into the mountains.
The tribune returned to the fire; sitting proved no easier than rising had been. “Lay back,” Gorgidas told him. “You’ve earned it.”
Scaurus started to relax, then sat up again, quickly enough to wrench a gasp from him. “By the gods,” he exclaimed, pointing at the tunnel-mouth, “Avshar himself may be coming out of that hole any minute.”
“Ordure!” That was Gaius Philippus. “With all this, I clean forgot the shriveled he-witch. He may have half of Yezd with him, too.”
Arigh weighed the choice, to move or fight. “We move,” he decided.
The Arshaum broke camp with a speed that impressed even the Romans. Of course, Scaurus thought, there was a great deal less involved than with a legionary encampment—fold tents, mount horses, and travel.
They did not ride far, three or four miles through a pass, south and a bit west so that Mashiz, now northeast of them, was screened from sight by the Dilbat foothills. Though the journey was short, jouncing along on the backs of a couple of rough-gaited steppe ponies left Marcus and Gaius Philippus white-lipped.
When at last they dismounted, Scaurus’ distress was so plain that Gorgidas said in peremptory tones, “Shuck off those rags. Let me see you.”
No less than officers, physicians learn the voice of command; Marcus obeyed without thinking. The tribune saw Gorgidas’ eyes widen slightly, but the Greek was too well schooled to reveal much. His hands moved down the length of the slash, marking Scaurus’ reaction at every inch. He muttered to himself in his own tongue, “Redness and swelling, heat and pain,” then spoke to Scaurus: “Your wound has inflammation in it.”
“Can you give me a drug to check it? We’ll be doing more riding than this, I’m sure, and I have to be able to sit a horse.”
He thought Gorgidas had not heard him. The Greek sat staring into the fire. But for his deep, regular breathing, he might have been cast from bronze; his features were calm and still. Marcus had just realized he was not even blinking when he turned and laid his hands on the tribune’s chest.
The grip was strong, square on the place that hurt worst. Involuntarily, Scaurus opened his mouth to cry out, but he found to his amazement that the physician’s touch brought no pain. Very much the opposite, in fact; he felt anguish flowing away, to be replaced by a feeling of well-being he had not known since Avshar took him.
The Greek’s fingers unerringly found the most feverish places in the cut. At each firm touch, the tribune felt pain and inflammation leave. When Gorgidas drew his hands away, Scaurus looked down at himself. The cut was still there; he would carry the mark to his grave. But it was only a pale line on his flesh, as if he had borne it for years. He bent and stretched and found he could move freely.
“You can’t do that,” he blurted. Gorgidas’ failure to learn the Videssian healing art had been one of the things that drove him to the plains.
The physician opened his eyes. His face was drawn with fatigue, but he gave the ghost of a grin. “Obviously,” he said. He turned to Gaius Philippus. “I think I can deal with you, too, if you want, though like as not you think it’s manly to let all your bruises hurt.”
“You must have me mixed up with Viridovix,” the veteran retorted. “Come on, do what you can, and I’ll be grateful. I will say, though, that healing or no healing, beard or no beard, some ways you haven’t changed much.”
“Good,” the Greek said, spoiling the gibe.
When Gorgidas dropped into the healer’s trance again, Marcus whispered to Viridovix, “Do you know how he learned the art?”
“The answer there is aye and nay both. Sure and I was there, and you might even say the cause of it all, being frozen more than a mite, but in no condition to make notes for your honor’s edification, if you see what I mean. Puir tomnoddy that I was, I thought you back safe and cozy in Videssos, belike wi’ six or eight bairns from that Helvis o’ yours—by the looks of her, one to keep a man warm o’ nights, I’m thinking.”
Gaius Philippus’ hiss had nothing to do with the hands that squeezed his upper arm. “Did I say summat wrong?” Viridovix asked, then studied Scaurus’ face, which had gone grim. “Och, I did that. Begging your pardon, whatever it was.”
“Never mind,” the tribune sighed. “We have a busy year’s worth of catching up to do, though.”
Gorgidas came out of his trance and let Gaius Philippus go. “Tomorrow, I beg you, when I can hear it, too,” he said. He was scarcely able to keep his eyes open. “For now, all I crave is rest.”
After going through the same set of contortions Marcus had, Gaius Philippus gave the physician a formal legionary salute, clenched fist held straight out in front of him. “You do just as you please,” he said sincerely. “By my book, you’ve earned the right.”
The touchy Greek raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? We’ll see.” He waved to a young man in scale mail of a pattern Marcus did not recognize. The fellow ambled over, smiling, and put a hand on Gorgidas’ shoulder. The physician said, “This is Rakio, of the Sworn Fellowship of the Yrmido. My lover.” He waited for the sky to fall.
“I am pleased you gentlemen to meet,” Rakio said, bowing.
“To the crows with you,” Gaius Philippus growled at Gorgidas. “You’ll not make me out a liar that easily.” He stuck out his hand. So did Scaurus. Rakio clasped them in turn; his grip had a soldier’s controlled strength. The Romans gave their own names.
“Then you are men from Gorgidas’ world,” Rakio exclaimed. “Much he about you has said.”
“Have you, now?” Marcus asked the physician, but got no answer. Gorgidas was asleep where he sat.
Leaving Rakio to bundle Gorgidas into his bedroll, the Romans wandered through the Arshaum camp. The healing had stripped away their exhaustion as if it had never been, and moving without pain was a pleasure to be savored for its newness. In sheer animal relief, Marcus stretched till his joints creaked. “Seems Viridovix was right,” he said. “A busy year indeed.”
He spoke Videssian because he had been using it with Rakio. Pikridios Goudeles snapped him out of his reverie with a sardonic jab: “If you have no further profound philosophical insights to offer, you might consider taking counsel with me over our next course of action—unless, of course, you relish Yezd so much that you are enamored of the prospect of remaining here indefinitely. As for myself, I find any place, including Skotos’ hell, would be preferable.”
“At your service,” the tribune said promptly. “With Avshar in the saddle here, the difference between one and the other isn’t worth spitting on.” He squatted, again feeling the delight of pain-free motion. “First, though, tell me how you got here and what your situation is.”
“You still talk like an officer,” Goudeles said. He started the story in his own discursive way. Seeing them with their heads together, Skylitzes joined them and boiled the essentials down to a few sentences. The bureaucrat gave him a resentful stare, but took back the conclusion almost by main force: “Arigh will not go east if alliance with Videssos means sacrificing his independence, or if he thinks the Emperor might make peace with Yezd.”
“No danger of that,” Scaurus said. “When I left Videssos, Gavras was planning this summer’s campaign against the Yezda. And as for the other, he’ll take allies on whatever terms he can get—he’s not so strong himself that he can afford to sneeze at them.”
“We have him, then!” Goudeles said to Skylitzes. He reached up to pound the taller man on the back. Marcus glanced at the two of them curiously. The pen-pusher caught the look. With a self-conscious smile, he said, “Once back in the city a while, I shall undoubtedly oppose the soldier’s faction once more with all my heart—”
“Not much there,” Skylitzes put in.
“Oh, go to the ice. Here I was about to say that spending time amongst the barbarians had changed—at least for the moment—my view of the world and Videssos’ place in it, and what thanks do I get? Insults!” Goudeles rolled his eyes dramatically.
“Save your theatrics for Midwinter’s Day,” Skylitzes said, unperturbed. “Let’s talk to Arigh. Now we have news to change his mind.”
Gaius Philippus inspected the gladius with a critical eye. “You’ve taken care of it,” he allowed. “A nick in the edge here, see, and another one close to the point, but nothing a little honing won’t fix. Can you use it, though? There’s the rub.”
“Yes,” Gorgidas said shortly. He still had mixed feelings about the sword and everything it stood for.
A few feet away, Viridovix was teasing Marcus. “Aren’t you the one, now? Bewailing me up, down, and sideways over a romp with Komitta Rhangavve, and then caught ’twixt the sheets with her yourself. My hat’s off to you, that it is.” He doffed his fur cap.
The tribune gritted his teeth, resigned to getting some such reaction from the Gaul. He looked for words as his pony splashed through the headwaters of the Gharraf River, one of the Tutub’s chief tributaries. Nothing much came, even though he was using Latin to keep the imperials he was traveling with from learning of his connection with Alypia. All he could say was, “It wasn’t—it isn’t—a romp. There’s more to it than that. More than with Helvis, too, I’m finding. Looking back, I should have seen the rocks in that stream early on.”
Remembering Viridovix’ tomcat ways back in Videssos, he expected the Celt to chaff him harder than ever. But Viridovix sobered instead. “One o’ those, is it? May you be lucky in it, then. I wasna when I had it and I dinna ken where I’ll find the like again.” He went on, mostly to himself, “Och, Seirem, it was no luck I brought you.”
They rode east in melancholy companionship. The lay of the land was not new to Scaurus, who had come the other way with Tahmasp on a route a little south of the one Arigh was taking. The country was low, rolling, and hilly, the southern marches of the rich alluvial plain of the Hundred Cities. Towns hereabout were small and hugged tight to streambeds. Away from water, the sun blasted the hills’ thin cover of grass and thornbushes to sere yellow. There was barely enough fodder to keep the horses in condition.
A scout trotted back over the rise ahead, shouting in the plains speech. Gorgidas translated for the Roman: “A band of Yezda heading our way.” He listened some more. “We outnumber them, he says.” Marcus grunted in relief. Arigh hardly led six hundred men. A really large company of Yezda going to join Avshar at Mashiz could have ridden over them without difficulty.
As a competent general should, Arigh made his decision quickly. Signal flags waved beside him. The Arshaum deployed from column to line of battle with an unruffled haste that reminded Scaurus of his legionaries. The riders on either flank trotted ahead to form outsweeping wings. The center lagged. Along with his own horse-archers, Arigh kept the remnant of the Erzrumi and the Videssian party there. When he noticed Scaurus studying his arrangements, he bared his teeth in a mirthless grin. “Not enough heavy-armed horsemen to do much good, but if they count for anything, it’ll be here.”
A messenger came streaking from the left wing, spoke briefly with the Arshaum leader, and galloped away. More flags fluttered. “They’ve spotted the spalpeens there,” Viridovix said, reading the signal. The whole force swung leftward.
No great horseman, Marcus hoped he would be able to control his pony in a fight. Gaius Philippus must have been wrestling with the same worry, for he looked more nervous than the tribune had ever seen him just before combat. He hefted a borrowed saber uncertainly. Gorgidas had offered him his gladius back, but he declined, saying, “Better me than you with an unfamiliar sword.” The tribune wondered if he was regretting his generosity.
They topped the rise over which the outrider had come. Partly obscured by their own dust, Scaurus saw Yezda galloping away in good order. Viridovix shouted a warning: “Dinna be fooled! It’s a ploy all these horse-nomads use, to cozen their foes into thinking ’em cowards.”
The pursuing Arshaum on either wing, wary of the trick, kept at a respectful distance from their opponents’ main body. Already, though, the faster ponies among them were coming level with the Yezda on slow horses. They did not try to close, but swept wide, seeking to surround the Yezda.
Seeing they might succeed and bag his entire force, the Yezda leader bawled an order. With marvelous speed and skill, his men wheeled their horses and thundered back the way they had come, straight for Arigh and the center of his line. One by one, they rose high in their short-stirruped saddles to shoot.
Marcus had faced a barrage from nomadic archers at Maragha. Then he had been afoot, with no choice but to stand and take it. It had seemed to go on forever. Now he, too, was mounted, in the midst of plainsmen matching the Yezda shot for shot, and then charging the enemy at a pace that left his eyes teary from wind.
An Arshaum horse went crashing down, rolling over its luckless rider. The pony behind it slewed to avoid it, exposing its barrel to the Yezda. An instant later the second beast screamed and foundered a few feet past the first. The plainsman on it kicked free and tumbled over the rough ground, arms up to protect his head.
An arrow bit Scaurus’ calf. He yelped. When he looked down, he saw a freely bleeding cut, perhaps two inches long; the head of the shaft had scored the outside of his leg as it darted past. The wound was just below the bottom of his trouser leg. The breeches, borrowed from an Arshaum, fit him well through the waist but were much too short.
Then it was sword on sword, the Yezda trying to hack their way through their foes before the latter could bring all their numbers to bear, Arigh’s men battling to keep them in check. Marcus did his best to put himself in a Yezda’s way, though to his moritfication the first rider he came near avoided him as easily as if he and his mount had suddenly frozen solid.
Another horseman approached. The fighting was at closer quarters now, and the going slower. The Yezda feinted, slashed. Marcus was lucky to turn the blow; he had to think about everything he did, a weakness easily fatal in combat. His answering stroke almost cut off his horse’s ear. The Yezda, seeing he was up against a tyro, let a smile peek through his thick black beard.
His own swordplay, though, had more ferocity than science, and Scaurus, after beating aside a series of roundhouse slashes, felt his confidence begin to return. He could fight this way, even if only on the defensive. The Yezda’s grin faded. A fresh surge of combat swept them apart.
The tribune noted with a twinge of envy how well Viridovix and Gorgidas handled themselves on horseback. The Celt’s long arm and long, straight blade made him a deadly foe; Gorgidas was less flamboyant but held his own. And there was Gaius Philippus, laying about with his saber as though born to it. Marcus wished he had more of that adaptability.
He was hotly engaged with a Yezda who was a better warrior than the first when the man suddenly wheeled to protect himself from a new threat. Too late; an Erzrumi lance pierced his small leather shield as if it were of tissue, drove deep into his midriff, and plucked him from the saddle. Not since the Namdaleni had Scaurus seen heavy horse in action; he wished Arigh had more mountaineers along.
Those Yezda who could broke out and fled westward. The Arshaum did not pursue—their road was in the opposite direction. The skirmish had cost them a double handful of men. Three times that many Yezda lay dead on the parched ground; several more howled and writhed with wounds that would kill them more slowly but no less surely.
Arigh stood over a Yezda whose guts spilled out into the dry grass. The man whimpered at every breath; he was far past saving. Arigh called Skylitzes to him. “Tell him I will give him release if he answers me truthfully.” The Arshaum chief drew his dagger; the Yezda’s eyes fixed on it eagerly. He nodded, his face contorted with pain. “Ask him where Avshar intends to take the army he’s forming.”
Skylitzes put the question into the Khamorth tongue. “Videssos,” the Yezda wheezed, tears, oozing down his cheeks. He added a couple of words. “Your promise,” Skylitzes translated absently. His face had gone grim, the news was what he had expected, but bad all the same.
Arigh drove his dagger through the Yezda’s throat.
“Best be sure,” he said, and started to put the question to another fallen enemy, but the soldier died while Skylitzes was translating it. A third try, though, confirmed the first. “Good,” Arigh said. “I feel easier now—I’m not leaving Avshar behind.”
The Arshaum left their foes where they had fallen. They took up the corpses of their own men and dug hasty graves for them when they came to soft ground by the side of a stream. Tolui spoke briefly as the plainsmen covered over their comrades’ bodies. “What is he saying?” Marcus asked Gorgidas.
“Hmm? Just listen—no, I’m an idiot; you don’t know the Arshaum tongue.” The physician knuckled his eyes. “So tired,” he muttered; he had helped heal three men after the skirmish. With an effort, he gathered himself. “He prays that the ghosts of their slain enemies will serve these warriors in the next world.”
A thought struck Scaurus. “How strong a wizard is he?”
“Stronger than I first guessed, surely. Why?”
Without naming Wulghash, the tribune explained how his sword had been partly masked. Gorgidas dipped his head to show he understood. “Aye; Viridovix was tracked across the steppe by his blade. If Tolui can match the magic done for you, it would be no small gain to cover our trail from Avshar.” His gaze sharpened. “That sounds like a potent sorcery for a chance-met guardsman to have ready to hand.”
Marcus felt himself flush; he should have known better than to try to hide anything from the Greek. “I don’t suppose it matters now,” he said, and told Gorgidas who the sorcerer was.
The physician had a coughing fit. When he could talk again, he said, “As well you didn’t name him in Arigh’s hearing. He would have seen Wulghash only as the overlord of Yezd, and an enemy; he would not have spared him for rescuing you. He likes you, mind, but not enough to turn aside from his own plans for your sake.”
“He’s like his opposite number, then,” Scaurus said. “Thorisin, too, come to think of it.” He grinned lopsidedly. “Sometimes I was unhappy with Rome’s republic, but having seen kings in action, I hope it lasts forever.”
That evening Tolui examined the tribune’s sword with minute care, then did the same for Viridovix’. “I see what has been done,” he said at last, “but not how. Still, I will try to match it in my own way.” He quickly donned his fringed regalia, tapped on the oval spirit-drum to summon aid to him.
Scaurus jumped when a voice spoke from nowhere; he had not seen wizardry of this sort before. More and louder drum-work enforced the shaman’s command on the spirit.
But the magic in the Gaul’s blade must have taken its approach as inimical, for the druids’ marks suddenly blazed hot and golden. The spirit wailed. Tolui staggered and cried out urgently, but only fading, derisive laughter answered him.
With trembling hands, he lifted off his leering mask. His wide, high-cheekboned face was pale beneath its swarthiness. In a chagrined voice, he spoke briefly to Gorgidas. The Greek translated: “He says he praises the wizard who disguised your sword, Scaurus. He gave the best he had, but his magic is not subtle enough for the task.”
The tribune hid his disappointment. After making sure by gestures that Tolui was all right, he said to Gorgidas, “Worth the try—we’re no worse off than we were before.”
“Except for the puir singed ghostie, that is,” Viridovix amended wryly, sheathing his blade. “Yowled like a scalded cat, it did.”
Later, Gorgidas remarked to Scaurus, “I didn’t think Tolui would fail you. He’s beaten two magicians at once; Wulghash must be far out of the ordinary, to succeed in putting a spell on your blade.”
“Not on, exactly—around is closer, I think,” the tribune answered. “Even Avshar didn’t dare to try making a spell cling to the sword itself.”
“As it should be, that,” Viridovix said. “The holy druids ha’ more power to ’em nor any maggoty wizard, for it’s after walking with the true gods that they are.” He had utter confidence in the supremacy of his Celtic wise men.
Gaius Philippus snorted. “If your mighty druids are as marvelous as all that, how did Marcus here win his Gallic blade from one of them in battle? And how is it the magic in his sword and yours fetched all of us here, you included, instead of leaving you back in your own country as a properly crafted piece of wizardry would?”
Viridovix looked down his long, straight nose at the senior centurion. “Sure, and I’d managed to forget what a poisonous beetle y’are.” He leaned forward to stir up the embers of the fire they were sitting around. That done, he resumed, “For all you ken, ’twas purposed we come here.”
The Gaul spoke in reflex defense of the druids, but Gorgidas broke through Gaius Philippus’ derisive grunt to say, soberly, “Maybe it was. The hermit in the ruins thought so.”
“What tale is this?” Marcus asked; with so much having happened on both sides, neither was caught up on all the other’s doings.
The physician and Viridovix took turns telling it. While he listened, Scaurus scratched his chin. Stubble rasped his fingers. One of the first things he had done after regaining his freedom was to borrow Viridovix’ razor and scrape off his beard. He kept at it, though shaving with stale grease left a lot to be desired.
When they were through, Gaius Philippus, who was also beardless again, commented: “Sounds like just another priest to me, maybe stewed in his own juice too long. He didn’t say what this whacking big purpose was, did he now?”
“To my way of thinking, men make purposes, not the other way round,” Gorgidas said. He challenged the veteran: “What would you aim for, given the choice?”
“Ask me a hard one.” The laugh Gaius Philippus gave had nothing to do with mirth. “I want Avshar.”
“Aye.” Viridovix crooned the word, in his eagerness once more looking and sounding the barbarian he had almost ceased to be. “The head of him over my door.”
Marcus thought the question hardly worth asking. Beyond what the wizard-prince had done to any of them, he put Videssos in mortal peril. Leaving his own scars—even leaving Alypia—out of the bargain, that alone would have turned the Roman against him forever. For all its faults, Scaurus admired his adopted homeland’s tradition of benign rule; he knew how rare it was.
He was rubbing his chin again when his hand stopped cold, forgotten. Very slowly, he turned to Viridovix and asked, “How much would you give to bring him down?”
“Himself?” The Celt did not hesitate. “No price’d be too much.”
“I hope you mean that. Listen …”
The Arshaum halted at a branching in the road. Neither path east seemed promising. The northern track ran through more of the barren scrub country with which they had already become too familiar, while the other swerved south into what was frankly desert.
Marcus and Gaius Philippus urged Arigh toward the southern route. “You’ll enter Videssos sooner, for its border swings further east in the south,” the tribune said. “And the Yezda will be fewer. They leave the waste to the desert nomads; there’s not enough water to keep their herds alive.”
“Then how will we find enough for ourselves?” Arigh asked pointedly.
“It’s there, if you know where to look,” Gaius Philippus said, “and Scaurus and I do. This is the way we went west with Tahmasp’s caravan. Aside from the towns, that pirate knows the name of every little well, and its grandmother’s, too. We’re no rookies, Arigh; we kept our eyes open.”
“A strange route for a caravan master,” the Arshaum chief mused. “The Hundred Cities surely offered richer trade.”
“Normally, yes, but the fox had wind of invaders turning them upside down.” Marcus grinned. “That would have been you, I suppose.”
“So it would.” Arigh pondered the coincidence. “Maybe the spirits are granting us an omen. Be it so, then.” Seldom indecisive long, he waved his followers down the road the Romans suggested.
The air had the smell of hot dust. The sun glared off stretches of sand. Rakio stared through slitted eyes at the baked flatlands he and his comrades were traversing. “Oh, for valleys and streams and cool green meadows!” he said plaintively. “This would be a sorrowful place to die.”
“As if the where of it mattered,” Viridovix said. “I’ll be dead soon enough, here or someplace else.” As he had since hearing Scaurus’ plan, he sounded more resigned than gloomy. Fey, Gorgidas thought; the Celtic word fit.
For his part, the tribune did his best not to think about the likely fruits of his ingenuity. His role as guide helped. He quickly found the promises he and Gaius Philippus had given Arigh were easier to make than keep. Landmarks looked different from the way he remembered them. The blowing sand was part of the reason. Sometimes hundreds of yards of road disappeared under it.
Worse, he had only made the journey coming west. Seen from the opposite side, guideposts went unrecognized. Only after he had passed them and looked back was he sure of them. “A virtue of hindsight I hadn’t realized,” he remarked to the senior centurion after they managed to backtrack the Arshaum to the first important water hole.
At the Romans’ urging, the plainsmen kept their horses in good order as they let them drink. “If you foul an oasis, the desert men will hunt you down and kill you,” Scaurus warned Arigh.
The Arshaum chief was doubtful until Skylitzes said, “Think of the care your clans take with fire on the plains.”
“Ahh. Yes, I see,” Arigh said, making the connection. “Here fire is no risk; where will it go? But wasting or polluting water must be worth a war.”
Sentries’ alarms tumbled the Arshaum from their bedrolls at earliest dawn. A band of desert tribesmen was shaking itself out into loose array as it approached from the south. Most of the nomads rode light, graceful horses; a few were on camels. Some of the Arshaum ponies snorted and reared, taking the camels’ unfamiliar scent.
“Will they attack without parleying?” Arigh demanded.
“I wouldn’t think so, with three of us for their one,” Scaurus said. Behind them, the plainsmen were scrambling to horse.
“Never trust ’em, though,” Gaius Philippus added. “They turn traitor against each other for the sport of it; outsiders are prey the second they look weak. And have another care, too. Those bows don’t carry far, but sometimes they poison their arrows.”
Arigh nodded. “I remember that the envoys from their tribes were always at feud with each other in Videssos.” He was so thoroughly a chieftain these days that Marcus had almost forgotten his years as ambassador at the imperial city.
The Arshaum gave his attention back to the newcomers. “What’s this?”
The desert men had sent a party forward. They came slowly, their hands ostentatiously visible. “You know more about them than anyone else here,” Arigh said to the Romans. “Come on.” Accompanied by Arshaum archers, they rode out with him toward the approaching nomads.
The desert tribesmen and men from the steppe studied each other curiously. Instead of trousers and tunics, the horsemen nearing the oasis wore flowing robes of white or brown wool. Some wrapped strips of cloth round their heads, while others protected themselves from the sun with scarves of linen or silk. They were most of them lean, with long, deeply tanned faces, features of surprising delicacy, and deep-set eyes as chilly as their land was hot. A couple had waxed mustaches; most preferred a thin fringe of beard outlining the jaw.
They waited for Arigh to speak first and lose face. But the startlement they showed when he asked, “Do you know Videssian?” regained it for him.
“Aye,” one of them said at last. His beard was grizzled, his face dark as old leather. The leader, Marcus guessed, as much from the way the rest of the tribesmen eyed him as from the heavy silver bracelets he wore on each wrist. “I am Shenuta of the Nufud.” He waved at his men. “Who are you, to use the waters of Qatif without our leave? Your strangeness is no excuse.”
Arigh named himself, then said loudly, “I am at war with Yezd. Is that excuse enough?”
It was a keen guess; Shenuta could not keep surprise off his face. He spoke rapidly in his own guttural tongue. Several of his followers exclaimed; one shook his fist at the northwest, toward Mashiz. “It is to be thought on,” Shenuta admitted, his features under control again.
Arigh pressed the advantage. “We have done nothing to Qatif save drink there. Send men to see if you care to. And in exchange for its water I have a gift for you.” He gave the Nufud chief his spare bow. “See the backing of horn and sinew, here and here? It will easily outrange the best you have. Make more; use them against the Yezda.”
“You are the oddest-looking man I have ever seen, but you have the ways of a prince,” Shenuta said. “Have you a daughter I might marry, to seal our friendship?”
“I am sorry, I do not; and if I did, the journey from my land, which lies far to the north, would not be easy.” Arigh spread his hands in regret.
Shenuta bowed in the saddle. “Then let the thought be taken for the deed. I give you and yours leave to use Qatif as if it were your own. This privilege you share with but three caravan masters: Stryphnos the Videssian, who taught me this speech in return; Jandal, whose mother is of the Nufud; and Tahmasp, who won the right to all my oases from me at dice.”
“Sounds like him,” Gaius Philippus said with a laugh.
For the first time, Shenuta swung his gaze toward the Romans. “You know Tahmasp?” He paid particular attention to Scaurus. “I have seen yellow-haired ones in his company once or twice.”
“They are of a people different from mine,” the tribune answered. “My comrade here and I served only one tour as guards with him, when he was on the road to Mashiz earlier this year. This is the fastest route we know to Videssos, which is why we told our friend Arigh of it. As he said, we meant no harm to what is yours.”
“That is well spoken,” Shenuta said. “If I had to choose between Videssos and Yezd, I think I would choose Videssos. But I do not have to choose; neither of them will ever master the desert. Perhaps one day they will destroy each other. Then the Nufud and the other tribes of free men shall come into their own.”
“Maybe so,” Marcus said politely, though his thought was that the desert nomads, for all their dignified ways, were no less barbarians than the Khamorth or Arshaum. Still, the Khamorth had conquered much of Videssos once.
The Nufud leader and Arigh exchanged oaths; Shenuta swore by sun, moon, and sand. Scaurus thought the encounter was done, but as Arigh was wheeling his pony to return to the oasis, Shenuta said, “When you catch up to Tahmasp, tell him I still think his dice were flats.”
“Tahmasp is still in Mashiz gathering a cargo, we thought,” Gaius Philippus said. “He told us he’d be months at it.”
Shenuta shrugged. “He watered his animals at the Fadak water hole south of here day before yesterday.” Marcus did not know that oasis. The desert nomad went on, “He said, though, that he planned to swing more north once he was further east. Your horses look good and you are not burdened by wares; my guess would be that you will meet him soon. Do not forget my message.” He bowed again to Arigh, nodded to the tribesmen with him, and rode back to the rest of the Nufud. At his shouted command, they trotted off to the south.
“Wonder what made Tahmasp pull out so quick,” Gaius Philippus said. “It doesn’t seem like him.”
“Would you want to stay in a city Avshar had just seized?” Marcus asked.
The veteran considered, briefly. “Not a chance.”
When the Arshaum left Qatif, they traveled with double patrols in case the Nufud took their oaths lightly. But, though a couple of desert nomads stayed in sight to keep a similar eye on the plainsmen, Shenuta proved a man of his word.
Marcus and Gaius Philippus gradually grew hardened to the saddle, undergoing the same toughening Viridovix, Gorgidas, and Goudeles had endured when they went to the steppe the year before. At every rest halt the senior centurion would rub his aching thighs. When the Arshaum snickered at him, he growled, “If you were on a forced march in the legions, you’d laugh from the other side of your faces, I promise you that.” They paid no attention, which only annoyed him more.
After Scaurus got the plainsmen to the next oasis, he felt his confidence begin to return. And when they came upon the signs of a recently abandoned camp and a trail leading east, excitement coursed through him. “Tahmasp, sure enough!” he exclaimed, finding a scrap of yellow canvas impaled on a thornbush. Holes in the ground where pegs had been driven showed the size of the caravaneer’s big tent.
Pacing it off, Arigh was impressed. “Not bad, for one not a nomad born. Few yurts are larger.”
Viridovix gave Marcus a sly glance. “A good thing, I’m thinking. Once we’re after having this trader to hand, now, we’ll no more be at the mercy o’ these Romans for directions, with them so confused and all.”
So much for confidence, the tribune thought. He said, “It’ll be a relief for me, too, let me tell you.”
He was astonished when the mercurial Celt cried angrily, “Och, a bellyful o’ these milksop answers I’ve had from the Greek already!” and stalked off. Viridovix stayed in his moody huff all night.
The desert wind had played with the caravan’s trail, but the Arshaum clung to it. And as they gained, the signs grew clearer. The sun was sinking at their backs when they spotted Tahmasp’s rear guard. They were spotted in turn; by the time they caught up with the caravan itself, it was drawn up for defense, with archers crouched behind hastily dumped bales of cloth. Merchants scrambled this way and that; Marcus heard Tahmasp’s familiar bellow roaring out orders.
The tribune said to Arigh, “Let us talk with him.”
“You’d better. I don’t think he’d listen to me.” The Arshaum chief allowed himself a dry laugh. His slanted eyes were gauging the caravan’s preparations. “Looks like he knows his business. Go on, calm him down.”
Unexpectedly, Pikridios Goudeles said, “If you don’t mind, I’ll accompany you. Perhaps I shall be able to render some assistance.”
“Not with one of your long speeches,” Gorgidas said in alarm, remembering the grandiloquent orations the pen-pusher had delivered on the steppe. “From what the Romans have said, I don’t think this Tahmasp is one to appreciate rhetoric.”
Goudeles sniffed. “Permit me to remind you that I know what I’m about. Where there’s a will, there’s a lawyer.”
With that his comrades had to be content. Shrugging, Arigh said, “As you please.” The tribune, centurion, and imperial bureaucrat urged their horses out from the Arshaum around them and walked the beasts forward until they were well within range of the caravan’s bows.
No one shot at them. Scaurus called, “Tahmasp! Kamytzes!” Gaius Philippus echoed with the name of the lieutenant under whom he’d served: “Muzaffar!” They shouted their own names.
“You two, is it?” Tahmasp yelled back furiously. “Another step closer and you’ll be buzzards’ meat, the both of you. I told you what we do to spies.”
“We weren’t spies,” the tribune returned. “Will you listen, or not?”
Goudeles spoke for the first time: “We’ll make it worth your while.” Marcus wondered at that; the Arshaum had little past horses, clothes and weapons. But the bureaucrat’s self-assurance was unruffled.
Scaurus heard Kamytzes’ voice raised in expostulation. Knowing the turn of the grim little Videssian’s mind, he guessed Tahmasp’s aide was arguing against a parley. But the numbers at Marcus’ back had a logic of their own, and Tahmasp, beneath his bluster, was an eminently practical man. He yielded gruffly, but he yielded. “All right, I’m listening. Come ahead.”
The Romans’ former comrades-in-arms met them with icy glares as they entered the perimeter of the improvised camp. Tahmasp stumped forward, closing the last catch on a chain-mail shirt Scaurus and Gaius Philippus could both have fit into. A spiked Makuraner-style helmet sat slightly askew on his shaved head. Kamytzes hovered a couple of steps behind him, his hands near a brace of throwing-knives at his bejeweled belt.
The caravan master folded his arms across his massive chest. “Thought you’d be in Videssos by now,” he accused the Romans. “Or is this more of what you call ‘business’?”
“We thought you were still in Mashiz,” Marcus returned. “Or couldn’t you stomach Avshar?” He hoped his guess was right. When Tahmasp’s eyes shifted, he knew it was. He said, “Neither could we,” and tugged his tunic over his head.
At the sight of the scar, Tahmasp pursed his lips. Several troopers who had been friendly with the Romans swore in a handful of tongues. But Tahmasp’s first concern, as always, was for his caravan. “So—we have reasons for disliking the same man. But what has that to do with those robbers out there?” He jabbed a thumb at the Arshaum, a vague but threatening mass in the deepening twilight.
“That’s a long story,” Gaius Philippus said. “Remember why you chose not to go through the Hundred Cities on your way west?”
“Some barbarian invasion or—” The caravaneer juggled facts as neatly as he did bills of lading. “Them, eh? Don’t tell me you were mixed up in that.”
“Not exactly.” Marcus told the story quickly, finishing, “You’re heading into Videssos and so are we, but you know all the short cuts and best roads. Show them to us and you’ll have the biggest guard force any caravan ever dreamed of. The Yezda won’t dare come near you.”
“And if I don’t …” Tahmasp began. His voice trailed away. The answer there was obvious. He took off his helmet and kicked it as far as he could; it flew spinning into the darkness. “What can I say but yes? Maybe your bastards’ll plunder me later, but you’ll sure plunder me now for a no. The pox take you, outlanders. My old granddad always told me to run screaming from anything that smelled like politics, and here you’re dragging me in up to my neck.”
“Not all politics are evil,” Goudeles said. “Nor will you suffer for aiding us.”
In his Arshaum suede and leather, with his beard untrimmed and his hair long and not very clean, the pen-pusher cut an unprepossessing figure. Tahmasp rumbled, “Who are you to make such promises, little man?”
The bureaucrat had learned on the plains to make do with what he had. When he drew himself up and declared haughtily, “Sirrah, you have the privilege of addressing Pikridios Goudeles, minister and ambassador of his Imperial Majesty Thorisin Gavras, Avtokrator of the Videssians.” It did not occur to Tahmasp to doubt him.
He was not, however, a man to be overawed for long. “Why is it such a privilege, eh?”
“Fetch me a parchment, pen and ink, and some sealing wax.” At the caravan master’s order, one of his men brought them. The bureaucrat wrote a few quick lines. “Now, have you fire?” he asked.
“Would I be without it?” Several of Tahmasp’s men carried fire-safes, to keep hot coals alive while they traveled. One of them upended his over a pile of tinder. When a small blaze sprang up, Goudeles lit the red wax’ wick and let several drops fall at the foot of his parchment. He jammed his seal ring into the wax while it was still soft and handed Tahmasp the finished document.
The caravaneer squatted by the little fire. His lips moved as he read. Suddenly a grin replaced the scowl he had been wearing since the Romans and Goudeles entered his encampment. He turned to his followers and shouted, “Exemption from imperial tolls for the next three years!”
The guardsmen and merchants burst into cheers. Tahmasp enfolded Goudeles in a beefy embrace and bussed him on both cheeks. “Little man, we have a deal!”
“How delightful.” The pen-pusher disentangled himself as fast as he could.
While Marcus was waving to the Arshaum that agreement had been struck, Tahmasp dug an elbow into Goudeles’ ribs. Goudeles yelped. The caravaneer said craftily, “You know, it’s likely I could beat the tolls anyway. Even your damned inspectors can’t be everywhere.”
“I daresay.” Goudeles held out his hand. “Shall I take the document back, then? The penalty for smuggling is, of course, confiscation of all illegal goods and a branding for the criminals involved.”
Tahmasp hastily made the parchment disappear. “No, no, no need of that. It is, as I said, a bargain.”
The rest of the Videssian party, Arigh, and a few of his commanders rode up to fraternize with the caravan master and his aides; bargain or no bargain, Tahmasp was nervous about letting too many of his new-found allies near his goods. He was politic enough, however, to send several skins of wine out to the plainsmen—enough to make them happy without turning them rowdy.
Having been drinking naught but water for some time, Scaurus enjoyed the wine all the more. He was in the middle of his second cup when he exclaimed, “I almost forgot!” He went over to Tahmasp, who was simultaneously asking quetions of Viridovix—whose red hair fascinated him—and answering them from Gorgidas, who wanted to know everything there was to know about all the strange places the caravaneer had seen in his travels. Tahmasp chuckled when the tribune delivered Shenuta’s message.
“So he thinks my dice are crooked, does he? He’s wrong; I’d never do such a thing,” the burly trader declared righteously. Then he winked. “But I’m surprised the old sand shark has a robe to call his own if he’s still using the pair he had that night. Those were loaded, all right—the wrong way!”
His booming laughter filled the desert night.