The Thousand Cities ttot-3

by Harry Turtledove

«That worked out well in spite of Sharbaraz,» Abivard answered. «Romezan is like me: he sees what the realm needs and goes ahead and takes care of it no matter what the King of Kings may think of the matter.»

  Roshnani sniffed. «The King of Kings is supposed to see what the realm needs and take care of it himself. He shouldn't need to rely on others to do that for him. If he can't do it, why is he the one to rule Makuran?»

  She spoke in a low voice and looked around before the words left her mouth to make sure no servant—or even her children—could hear. Abivard understood that; unlike Romezan, he found the idea of criticizing the King of Kings daunting at best. And Roshnani wasn't just criticizing. She was suggesting Sharbaraz didn't belong on the throne if he didn't do a better job. And if he didn't belong on that throne, who did?

  Abivard answered in a voice as soft as the one his principal wife had used: «I don't want to rebel against Sharbaraz King of Kings. Can you imagine me trying to lord it over the eunuchs in the palace? I only wish Sharbaraz would tend to ruling the realm and let all of us who serve him tend to our own soup without his always sticking his finger in and giving it a stir.»

  «He is the King of Kings, and he knows it,» Roshnani said with a wintry sigh. «He knows it too well, maybe. Whenever he can stick his finger in, he feels he has to, as if he wouldn't be ruling if he didn't.»

  «I've spent a good part of the past ten years and more hoping– wishing—you were wrong,» Abivard said, sighing, too. «I'm beginning to think you're right. Pound me on the head with a hammer often enough and ideas do sometimes get in. From brief acquaintance with his father, it's in his blood.»

  «It might not have been so bad if he hadn't had the throne stolen from him once,» Roshnani said.

  Abivard gulped down his wine. «It might not have been so bad,» he said, spacing his words out to emphasize them, «if Smerdis had kept on being King of Kings and no one had ever found out Sharbaraz was hidden away in Nalgis Crag stronghold.»

  When the words were out of his mouth, he realized he'd spoken treason—retroactive treason, since Smerdis the usurper was long dead, but treason nonetheless. He waited to hear how Roshnani would react to it. Calmly, she said, «Had matters turned out so, you wouldn't be brother-in-law to the King of Kings, you know.»

  «Do you think I care?» he returned. «I don't think my sister would have been less happy if she'd stayed married to Pradtak of Nalgis Crag domain than she is married to Sharbaraz of Makuran. No more happy, maybe, but not less.» He sighed again. «You can't tell about such things, though. Smerdis was busy paying the Khamorth tribute, if you'll remember. That would have touched off a revolt in the Northwest sooner or later. As well, maybe, that we had a proper King of Kings to head it.»

  «Maybe.» Roshnani emptied her wine cup, too. «All these might-have-beens can make you dizzier than wine if you spend too much time thinking about them.»

  «Everything is simple now,» Abivard said. «All we have to do is beat Maniakes.»

  First they had to come to grips with Maniakes. As Abivard had already discovered, that wasn't easy, not when Maniakes didn't care to be gripped. But having defeated the Avtokrator's best sorcery—or what he sincerely hoped was the Avtokrator's best sorcery—he pursued him with more confidence than he would have shown before.

  In case his sincere hopes proved mistaken, he stopped ignoring Bozorg and Panteles and had the two wizards ride together in a wagon near his own. Sometimes they got on as well as a couple of brothers. Sometimes they quarreled—also like a couple of brothers. As long as they weren't working magic to do away with each other, Abivard pretended not to see.

  He sent his part of cavalry out in a wide sweep, first to find Maniakes' army and then to slow it down so he could come up with the main body of his army and fight the Videssians. «This is what we couldn't do before,» he said enthusiastically, riding along with Turan. «We can move horsemen out ahead and make the Videssians turn and fight, hold them in place long enough for the rest of us to come forward and smash them.»

  «If all goes well, we can,» Turan said. «Their rear guard has been fighting hard, though, to keep us from getting hold of the main force Maniakes is leading.»

  «They can only do that for so long, though,» Abivard said. «The land between the Tutub and the Tib isn't like the Pardrayan steppe: it doesn't go on forever. After a while you get pushed off the floodplain and out into the scrub country. You can't keep an army alive out there.»

  «We talked about that last winter,» his lieutenant answered.

  «Maniakes didn't even try then. He just crossed the Videssian westlands till he came to a port, then sailed away, no doubt laughing at us. He could do the same again, every bit as easily.»

  «Yes, I suppose he could,» Abivard said. «He could go on to Serrhes, too, in the interior, the way Sharbaraz did all those years ago. I don't think he'll do either one, though. When he came into the land of the Thousand Cities last year, he had doubts. He was tentative; he wasn't sure at first that his soldiers were reliable. He's not worried about that anymore. He knows his men can fight, If he sees a spot he likes, he'll give battle there. He aimed to wreck us when he came back this year.»

  «He almost did it a couple of times, too,» Turan agreed. «And then, when that didn't work, he tried to drive us mad with the magic his wizards put on the canal.» He chuckled. «That was such a twisted scheme, I wonder if Tzikas was the one who thought of it.»

  Abivard started to answer seriously before realizing Turan was joking. Joke or not, it wasn't the most unlikely notion Abivard had ever heard. As he'd learned from painful experience, Tzikas was devious enough to have done exactly what Turan had said.

  Abivard soon had reason to pride himself on his own predictive powers. Not far from the headwaters of the Tutub, where the stream still flowed swift and foamy over stones before taking a generally calmer course, Maniakes chose a stretch of high ground and made it very plain to his pursuers that he intended to be pursued no more.

  «We'll smash him!» Romezan shouted. «We'll smash him and be rid of him once and for all.» After a moment he added, «Won't miss him a bit once he's gone, either.»

  «That would be very fine,» Abivard agreed. «The longer I look at that position, though, the more I think we'll come out of it like lamb's meat chopped up for the spit if we're not careful.»

  «They're only Videssians,» Romezan said. «It's not as if they're going to come charging down at us while we're advancing on them.»

  «No, I suppose not,» Abivard said. «But an uphill charge—and it would be a long uphill charge—doesn't strike with so much force as one on level ground. And if I know anything about Maniakes, it's that he doesn't intend just to sit up there and await our charge. He'll do something to break it up and keep it from hitting as hard as it should.»

  «What can he do?» Romezan demanded.

  «I don't know,» Abivard said. «I wish I did.»

  «And I wish you wouldn't shy at shadows,» Romezan said. «Maniakes is only a man, and soldier for soldier our horsemen are better than his. He can make a river flip—or he could till we figured out how to stop him—but he can't make his whole cursed army leap up in the air and land in our rear and on both flanks at the same time, now, can he?»

  «No,» Abivard admitted.

  «Well, then,» Romezan said triumphantly, as if he'd proved his point. Maybe he thought he had; he was as straightforward and aggressive in argument as he was in leading his cavalry into action.

  Abivard shook his head. «Go straight into battle against the Videssians and you're asking to come to grief. And not all fields are as open and tempting as they look. Remember how Peroz King of Kings died, leading the flower of the soldiery of Makuran against the Khamorth across what looked like an ordinary stretch of steppe. If my horse hadn't stepped in a hole and broken a leg at the very start of that charge, I expect I would have died there, too, along with my father and my brother and three half brothers.»

  Romezan scowled but had no quick comeback.
Every Makuraner noble family, whether from the Seven Clans or from the lesser nobility, had suffered grievous loss out on the Pardrayan steppe. After that fight how could you argue for a headlong charge and against at least a little caution?

  Sanatruq remained impetuous even after Abivard's blunt warning. «What are we going to do, then, lord?» he demanded. «Did we find a way across the canal only to decide we needn't have bothered? If we're not going to fight the Videssians, we might as well have stayed where we were.»

  «I never said we weren't going to fight them,» Abivard said. «But don't you think doing it on our terms instead of theirs matters?»

  The argument should have been telling. The argument in fact was telling—to Abivard. Romezan let out a sigh. «I should have stayed in the Videssian westlands and sent Kardarigan to you with this part of the field army. The two of you would have got on better than you and I do, both of you being… cautious. But I thought a cautious man better there, where there were towns to guard, and a fighter better here, where there were battles to wage. Maybe I was wrong.»

  That hurt. Abivard turned away so Romezan wouldn't see him wince. And had Romezan not been intrepid enough to leave the westlands and disobey Sharbaraz' order against doing it, to say nothing of being intrepid enough to pitch right into the Videssians when he found them, Abivard would have been in no condition to hold this conversation now. Still—

  «A baker thinks bread is the answer to every question,» he said, «while a farrier is sure it's horseshoes. No wonder a battler wants to go straight into the fray. But I don't merely want to fight Maniakes—I want to crush him if we can. If thinking things over instead of wading straight in will help us do that, I'd sooner think.»

  Romezan's bow was anything but submissive. «There he is,» he said, pointing toward the banner with a gold sunburst on blue that marked the Avtokrator's position. «He's got water right behind him, enough to keep him from getting thirsty but not enough to keep him from going over it if he has to. He's got the high ground. If he doesn't have plenty of food, I'll be amazed and so will you. He's got no reason to move, in other words. If we want him, we have to go at him. He's not going to come to us.»

  All those comments were true. Abivard had been studying the ground and said, «Don't you think the slope is less there on his right—our left?»

  «If you say so, lord,» Romezan answered, prepared to be magnanimous now that he scented victory. «Do you want the attack to go in on our left? We can do that, of course.»

  Abivard shook his head, and that made Romezan and Sanatruq look suspicious again. He said, «I want to make it seem as if the main attack is going in on our left. I want Maniakes to think that and to shift his forces to meet it. But once he's gone for the feint, I want the true attack to come from the right.»

  Romezan toyed with one spiky, waxed mustache tip. «Aye, lord, that's good,» he said at last. «We give them something they don't expect that way.»

  «And you'll want the foot to hold the center, the way you've been doing lately?» Turan asked.

  «Just so,» Abivard agreed. As Romezan was in the habit of doing, the noble from the Seven Clans looked down his considerable nose at the mere mention of infantry. Before taking over the city garrisons Abivard would have done the same thing. He knew what these men were worth, though. They would fight and fight hard. He slapped Turan on the shoulder. «Get them ready.»

  «Aye, lord.» His lieutenant hurried away.

  Something else occurred to Abivard. «When we move against the Videssians, Romezan, I will command on the left and you on the right.»

  Romezan stared at him. «Lord… you would give me the honor of leading the chief attack? I am in your debt, but are you certain you do not damage your own honor with this generosity?»

  «The realm comes first,» Abivard said firmly. «Maniakes will see me there on the left. He'll recognize my banners, and he'll likely recognize me, too. When he sees me there, that will make him more certain the division of the army I command will be the one to try to smash him. He will reason as you do, Romezan: how could I give up the place of honor to another? But honor lies in victory, and for victory over the Videssians I gladly give up this superficial honor.»

  Romezan bowed very low, as if Abivard were far superior to him in rank. «Lord, you could do worse than instructing the Seven Clans on the nature of honor.»

  «To the Void with that. If they want instruction, we've sent them enough Videssian slaves to serve them as pedagogues for the next hundred years. What we have now is a battle to fight.» Abivard stared over toward the distant banners of Videssos that marked the Avtokrator's position. Outwitting Maniakes got trickier every time he tried it, but he'd managed to come up with something new. Like a boy with a new toy, he could hardly wait to try it.

  «Let me understand you, lord,» Romezan said. «You will want my men to hang back somewhat and not show their true courage—they should act as if the steepness of the ground troubles them.»

  «That's what I have in mind,» Abivard agreed, his earlier quarrel with Romezan almost forgotten. «I'll press the attack on my flank as hard as I can and do everything I know how to do to draw as many Videssians to me as will come. Meanwhile, you, poor fellow, will be having all sorts of trouble—till the right moment comes.»

  «I won't be too soon, lord,» Romezan promised. «And you can bet I won't be too late, either.» He sounded very sure of himself.

  For the first time since his recall from Across Abivard had a proper Makuraner army, not some slapped-together makeshift, to lead into battle against the Videssians. Since Likinios' overthrow, he'd won whenever he had led a proper army against them. Indeed, they'd fled before him time after time. He eyed his men. They seemed full of quiet confidence. They were used to bearing the Videssians, too.

  He rode to the front of the left wing. On this field he wanted his presence widely advertised. Banners blazoned with the red lion of Makuran fluttered all around him. Here I am, the commander of this host, they shouted to the Videssians up on their low rise. I'm going to lead the main attack—of course I am. Pay me plenty of attention.

  Maniakes, by his own banners, led from the center of his army, the most common Videssian practice. He'd invited battle, which meant he felt confident, too. He'd beaten the Kubrati barbarians. He'd beaten Abivard more often than not—when Abivard had been leading a patchwork force. Did that really make him think he could beat the Makuraner field army? If it did, Abivard intended to show him he was wrong.

  Abivard nodded to the horn players. «Sound the advance,» he said, and pointed up the slope toward the Videssians. Martial music blared forth. Abivard booted his horse in the ribs. It started forward.

  He had to sacrifice a little of the full fury of a Makuraner charge because he was going uphill at the Videssians. He also had to be careful to make sure the horse archers he'd placed to link the heavy cavalry contingents he and Romezan commanded to Turan's infantry kept on linking the different units and didn't go rushing off on some brainstorm of their own. That might open gaps the Videssians could exploit

  Horn calls rang out along the Videssian line, too. Peering over the chain mail veil of his helmet, Abivard watched Maniakes' men ride forward to meet his. Whatever else they intended, the Videssians didn't aim to stand solely on the defensive.

  Their archers started shooting at the oncoming Makuraner heavy cavalry. Here and there a man slid from his mount or a horse stumbled and went down, and as often as not, other horses would trip over those in the first ranks that had fallen. Had the Videssians done more damage with their archery, they might have disrupted the Makuraner charge.

  But the riders of Makuran were armored in iron from head to foot. Their horses wore iron scales, too, sewn into or mounted in pockets on the blankets that covered their backs and sides, while iron chamfrons protected their heads and necks. Arrows found lodging places far less often than they would have against lightly warded men and animals.

  No one now rode out between the armies with a challenge
to single combat. In principle, such duels were honorable, even if Tzikas' attempts to use them both for and against Makuran had all but driven Abivard mad. But showy displays of honor had given way—on both sides, apparently—to a hard desire to fight things out to the end as soon as possible

  Lowering his lance, Abivard picked the Videssian he wanted to spear out of the saddle. The imperial saw him coming, saw the stroke was going to be unavoidable, and twisted in the saddle to try to turn the lance head with his small, round shield.

  He gauged the angle well. Sparks spit as the iron point skidded across the iron facing of his shield. That deflection kept the point from his vitals. But the force of the blow still all but unhorsed him and meant his answering sword cut came closer to lopping off one of his mount's ears than to doing Abivard any harm.

  «Sharbaraz!» Abivard shouted. He spurred his horse forward, using speed and weight against the Videssian. As the man—he was a good horseman and as game as they came—righted himself in the saddle, Abivard clouted him on the side of the head with the shaft of his lance. The blow caught the Videssian by surprise; it was one a Makuraner was far likelier to make with a broken lance than with a whole one, the point being so much more deadly than the shaft.

  But Abivard knew from painful experience how much damage a blow to the head could do even if it didn't cave in a skull. The Videssian reeled. He held on to the sword but looked at it as if he hadn't the slightest idea what it was good for.

  His opponent stunned, Abivard had the moment he needed to draw the lance back and slam it into the fellow's throat. Blood sprayed out, then gushed as he yanked the point free. The Videssian clutched at the shaft of the lance, but his grip had no strength to it. His hands slipped away, and he crumpled to the ground.

  Another Videssian slashed at Abivard. Awkwardly, he blocked the blow with his lance. The imperial's blade bit into the wood. The soldier cursed horribly as he worked it free; his face was twisted with fear lest he be assailed while he could not use his weapon. He did manage to clear it before another Makuraner attacked him. What happened to him after that, Abivard never knew. As was often the way of battle, they were swept apart.