Videssos Cycle, Volume 2 (79 page)

Irnek’s words, though, could not have been rehearsed, not when he had just learned of Arghun’s death. He said, “A giant in white mantlings on a great horse cut his way through my riders and headed south.” His warriors shouted confirmation; one had been disarmed by a stroke of Avshar’s broad-sword, and counted himself lucky not to have lost his head as well.

“Anthrax take the Hairies, then! Let them run,” Arigh said. His wave encompassed a score of his clansmen. “Get fresh horses from camp and be after the wizard. I don’t care how fast that big black stallion is—aye, I’ve seen it. He has no remounts, and we’ll run him down, soon or late.” He grinned wolfishly at the prospect.

As the riders hurried away, Dizabul rounded on his brother, angrily demanding, “Who are you, to give orders so?” One of Irnek’s eyebrows might have twitched, but his features were too well schooled to give away much of what he was thinking.

“And who are you, to say I may not?” Arigh’s voice was silky with danger. The Gray Horse Arshaum surreptitiously jockeyed for position,
some lining up behind one brother, some behind the other. Gorgidas was dismayed to see how much support Dizabul enjoyed. He had largely recovered from the ignominy of backing Bogoraz, and many of his clanmates were more comfortable with him than with Arigh after Arghun’s elder son had spent so much time in Videssos, away from the steppe.

Irnek sat quiet on his horse, weighing the balance of forces.

“A moment, gentlemen!” Pikridios Goudeles forced his way through the crowd to Arigh and Dizabul. The dapper envoy was sadly draggled, covered with blood, dust, and sweat. His voice had nothing wrong with it, though, rolling out rich and deep in the trained phrasing of the rhetorician. “The command is sensible, no matter who gives it.”

He could not be as grandiloquent in the Arshaum tongue as in his own Videssian, but by now he spoke it fairly well. Agrhun’s sons turned their heads to listen. He continued, “Consider who gains from your disunity at the moment of victory—only Avshar. Suppressing him is your chiefest goal; all else comes afterward. Is it not so?”

“Truth,” Arigh said soberly. Dizabul still glowered, but nodded in reluctant agreement. The Gray Horse clansmen visibly relaxed. Irnek’s mouth was a little tight, but he bobbed his head Goudeles’ way, respecting the diplomat for his skill.

But then Batbaian spoke out: “It is
not
so!” Heads swung his way in surprise. He said, “With Varatesh dead—may the ghosts of hungry wolves gnaw his spirit’s privates forever—and Avshar routed, what needs doing is setting Pardraya right once more, so their wickedness can never flourish here again.” He trotted his pony a few paces north, toward the vanished Khamorth. “Are you with me, V’rid’rish?”

The Gaul started; he had not expected the question. The naked appeal on Batbaian’s face tore at him, and life with Targitaus’ clan, though very different from the one he had known in Gaul, had had some of the same easygoing freedom to it. Two summers before, he had been ready to desert Videssos for Namdalen, but now when he probed his feelings he found only a small temptation and a regret that it was not greater.

He shook his head sadly. “I canna, lad. Avshar’s the pit o’ the peach, I’m thinking, and my foeman or ever I came to the plains. I willna turn away from him the now.”

Batbaian slumped like a man taking a wound. “I’ll go alone, then. I have my duty, just as you think you have yours.” Viridovix flinched at his choice of words. The Khamorth said, very low, “There will always be a place for you in my tents.” He wheeled his horse and started to ride away.

“Wait!” Irnek called. Batbaian reined in. The Arshaum chieftain said, “Would you ride with my men at your back? With your Hai—” He choked the word off. “—ah, people in disarray, we can make you master as far east as the plains run.”

Here, thought Gorgidas, was truly one with an eye toward the main chance. Batbaian might have been reading his mind, for he barked out two syllables of a laugh. “If I said yes to that, Arshaum, your men would be riding on my back, not at it. I’ll not be your bellwether for you, with my ballocks cut off and a chime round my neck to lead my folk to your herding. We remember how you drove the last of us east over the Shaum a lifetime ago. You hunger for Pardraya, too, now, do you? Thank you all the same, but I’ll win or fall on my own.”

“Will you?” Irnek said. He was still smiling, but with his mouth only; his eyes had gone flinty. His men stirred, looking to him for orders. Batbaian hesitated, then reached for his shamshir.

But Arigh rapped out, “By the wind spirits, he does as he pleases. He’s paid the price for the right.” This once, Dizabul backed his brother. A mutter of agreement rose from the riders of the Gray Horse Arshaum, who knew and admired Batbaian’s quality. They stared in challenge at Irnek’s Black Sheep.

Irnek refused to be drawn. His laugh came, easy and naturalsounding. “A dismal state of affairs, when Arshaum are reduced to arguing over the fate of a Hairy.” He no longer wasted politeness on Batbaian, but waved him away. “Go, then, if it suits you.” Batbaian gave Arigh a sketched salute, Viridovix another. He trotted north. The twilight gloom swallowed him.

“Tis Royal Khagan he’ll be one day, I’m thinking,” Viridovix whispered to Gorgidas.

“I’d say you’re right, if he lives,” the Greek replied. He was remembering the wand Tolui had used to symbolize the Khamorth, and how its pieces had begun to burn. With Varatesh dead and his power shattered, civil war would run through the clans of Pardraya, one-time collaborators
against their vengeful foes. Batbaian, he was sure, knew the danger he was riding into.

As darkness fell, the Arshaum ranged over the field, stripping corpses and slitting the throats of those Khamorth who still moved—and those of Arshaum who knew themselves mortally wounded and sought release from pain. The shamans, Gorgidas with them, did what they could for those less seriously hurt. The physician used the healing art on two badly injured warriors with good results, then tottered and almost fell; combined with the day’s exertions, the fatigue the healer’s trance brought with it left him shambling about in a weary daze.

Most corpses remained above ground, to await the services of carrion birds and the scavengers of the plains. Only Arghun and a couple of fallen subchiefs from other clans received burial. The Gray Horse Arshaum worked by firelight to dig a grave large and deep enough to hold him and his pony. Tolui cut the beast’s throat at the edge of the pit, in accordance with the nomads’ custom. Either Arigh or Dizabul might have done so, but neither would yield the other the privilege.

Gorgidas got back to camp as that quarrel was winding down. He collapsed by a fire with the rest of the embassy party and gnawed mechanically at a chunk of smoked meat. It must have been past midnight; the crescent moon was long set.

Arghun’s sons flared at each other again, shouting furiously. “You spoiled, stupid puppy, why should you deserve the rule?”

“A fine one to talk you are, coming back after years to try and rob me—”

“Not long will they be going on like that,” Viridovix said with glum certainty; he had been in faction fights of his own. “A word too many and it’s out swords and at ’em!”

The Greek feared he was right. The insults were getting louder and more personal. “You’d futter a mangy sheep!” Dizabul hissed.

“No. I wouldn’t risk taking your pox from it.”

“And here’s more trouble,” Viridovix said as Irnek came striding briskly between campfires. “What’s he after?”

“His own advantage,” Gorgidas said.

Arghun’s sons fell silent under Irnek’s sardonic eye. He was older and more experienced than either of them; his simple presence was a weapon. “I trust I’m not interrupting,” he said, earning a glare from Dizabul and a hard frown from Arigh.

“What is it?” Arigh snapped, with hauteur enough to make the leader of the Black Sheep pause.

Irnek, as was his way, recovered well. “I have something to tell the Gray Horse khagan,” he said, “whichever of you that may be.” He did not stop to savor their sputters, but went on, “As your—friend? client?—Batbaian made it clear my clan was not welcome east of the Shaum, I have decided the only proper thing for us to do is return to our lands and herds in Shaumkhiil. We’ve been too long away, anyhow. We leave tomorrow.”

Both brothers exclaimed in dismay. Dizabul burst out, “What of your fancy promises of help?” He had reason to be disconcerted; Irnek led a good quarter of the Arshaum forces.

“What do you call this past day’s work?” Irnek retorted, with some justice. “I lost nearly a hundred men killed, and twice as many wounded—help enough, I’d say, for a fight that wasn’t my own in the first place.” He turned on his heel and stalked away, leaving Dizabul still expostulating behind him.

“You must be a farmer, to find your land so dear,” the young prince jeered. Irnek’s back stiffened, but he kept walking.

“Good shot!” Arigh said, slapping his brother on the shoulder. His anger at the Black Sheep leader put the damper on the quarrel with Dizabul, at least for the moment. He shouted to Irnek, “We’ll go on without you, then!” Irnek shrugged without breaking stride.

Gorgidas’ head and Goudeles’ came up at the same instant; their eyes met in consternation. “They don’t see their danger. How do we fix it?” Gorgidas demanded.

“Do we?” Goudeles said. “Better for the Empire if we leave it alone.”

Viridovix and Lankinos Skylitzes looked at them as if they had started speaking an unknown tongue. But Gorgidas said angrily, “We do! There’s no justice in loading all the risk on them and having them ruined on their pastures as well. Besides, I like them.”

“Amateurs,” Goudeles sighed. “What do likes matter, or justice?”
Even so, he gave a few sentences of pithy advice, very much what Gorgidas had also been thinking. Their friends’ eyebrows rose in sudden understanding. The pen-pusher finished, “Do you want to put it to them, or shall I?”

“I will,” Gorgidas said, his knees creaking as he rose. He started to walk over to the Arshaum, then turned back to Goudeles. “Tell me, Pikridios, if justice does not matter, how are you different from Avshar?” He did not wait for an answer.

Arghun’s sons were running up their light felt tents when the Greek approached. Arigh nodded in a friendly enough way, Dizabul curtly. The physician still wondered whether he had been glad or sorry to see his father saved from Bogoraz’ hemlock. He would probably never know.

In time-honored Hellenic tradition, he put his business in the form of a question. “What do the two of you think Irnek will do in Shaumkhiil while we chase after Avshar?”

“Why, go back to his herds,” Dizabul said before he realized the question was out of the ordinary. Arigh saw it quicker. He had been using the heavy pommel on the hilt of his dagger to hammer tent pegs; he threw the weapon down with an oath.

“The answer is, anything he pleases,” he ground out. “Who’d be there to stop him?”

“We can’t let him get away with that,” Dizabul said fiercely. Where the fortunes of the Gray Horses were touched, they stood in perfect accord; what use to be khagan of a ruined clan?

“Would you forget why we’re here, then, and what we owe Yezd? All the more, now.” Arigh eyed his younger brother with comtempt. Not far away, nomads were still filling in Arghun’s grave.

“N-no, but what can we do?” Dizabul said, troubled. Arigh chewed his lip.

“May I suggest something?” Gorgidas asked. Again, Arigh nodded first, Dizabul following warily. When he saw he had their consent, he went on: “This could be one time when having both of you as leaders will work for you, not against. One could go ahead and move on Yezd, while the other took part of your force back across the Shaum to your stretch of the steppe. It need not be nearly as big as Irnek’s band, only enough to make him think twice about starting trouble.”

The Greek watched them calculate. Whichever one held to the pursuit of Avshar would keep the greater part of the army, but the other would have the chance to solidify his position on his native ground with the rest of the clan. If they bought the scheme, he thought he knew who would pick which role—Goudeles had set it up to make each half attractive to one of them.

They came out of their study at the same time. “I’ll go back,” Dizabul said, while Arigh was declaring, “Come what may, I push on.” They looked at each other in surprise; Gorgidas kept his face straight. The imperials knew tricks Irnek had never thought of.

After that, the haggle was over how many riders would go on, how many back to Shaumkhiil. Not all the nomads accompanying Dizabul would be Gray Horse clansmen; some of the clans that had sent out smaller contingents were also nervous about Irnek’s intentions.

“I mislike giving away so many men,” Arigh said to Gorgidas when agreement was finally reached, “but what choice have I?”

The physician was so tired he hardly cared what he said; it was almost like being drunk. “None, but I don’t think numbers matter much. By himself Avshar outnumbers all of us.” Arigh rubbed his slashed cheek, nodded somberly.

S
WORDS CLASHED
. P
RESSED HARD
, N
EVRAT
S
VIODO GAVE GROUND
. Her foe slashed at her legs. She barely turned the blow with her saber and had to retreat again. The next cut came high. Again her parry was just in time. Sweat ran into her eyes. It burned. She did not have even an instant to blink it away, for her opponent was sidling forward, a nasty grin on his face.

A quick flurry of steel—an opening! Nevrat ducked a cut, stepped in close. Her wrist knew what to do then. Her foe reeled away.

He was still grinning. She scowled at him, her eyes dark and dangerous. “Curse you, Vazken, did you let me get home there? Don’t try that again when you practice with me, or you’ll end up bleeding for real.”

Vazken placatingly spread his hands. “It’s hard to make myself go all out against a woman.”

“Do you think the Yezda match your courtesy?” Nevrat snapped. She suspected she had seen more combat than her partner on the drill field—scouting was a chancier business than fighting in line. She did not say so. Vazken would only have stomped off in a huff.