Turtledove, Harry - Krispos 02

by Krispos of Videssos (v1. 0)

  "By the good god, magical sir, I think I know what it is. It's Tanilis." Krispos told Zaidas the whole story of her struggle against Harvas Black-Robe.

  "I think you're right, your Majesty," Zaidas said when he was through. The young mage bowed to the cot on which Tanilis lay as if she were a living queen. "Either she slew Harvas as she herself was slain, or at the very least hurt him so badly that his torch of power is reduced to a guttering ember too small for me even to discern."

  "Which means all we face in Pliskavos is an army of ferocious Halogai," Krispos said. He and Zaidas beamed at each other. Next to the prospect of battling Harvas Black-Robe again, any number of berserk, fearless axe-swinging northerners seemed a stroll in the meadow by comparison.

  XII

  The walls of Pliskavos burned all through the night. Only when morning came again did the flames begin to subside. Smoke still rose here and there inside the town from the fires the blazing wall had started.

  Two heralds, one a Videssian, the other from Krispos' force of Haloga guards, approached the wall as closely at its heat would allow. In the imperial speech and the tongue of Halogaland, they called on the northerners inside Pliskavos to yield, "...the more so," as the Videssian-speaker put it, "since the evil wizard who brought you to this pass can no longer aid you."

  Krispos held his breath at that, afraid in spite of everything that Harvas had been laying low for reasons of his own and would now reappear with redoubled malice and might. But of Harvas there was no sign. The Halogai did not yield, either. The heralds called out their message again and again, then withdrew to the imperial lines. Pliskavos remained silent, smoky, and enigmatic the whole day long.

  At the officers' meeting just after sunset, Krispos said, "If the walls have cooled enough by morning, we'll send men up onto them to see what's going on in there."

  "Aye," Mammianos said. "It's not like the cursed northerners to keep so quiet so long. They're up to something we'll likely regret—unless they've all been roasted, but that's too much to ask for, worse luck."

  The rest of the generals loudly and profanely agreed with him. Then Bagradas raised his wine cup and said, "Let's drink to the brave lady Tanilis, who made sure they were the ones who roasted rather than us, and who made Harvas choke on his own bile."

  "Tanilis!" The officers shouted out her name. Krispos spoke it with the rest of them and drank with them as well. The meeting broke up soon afterward. The soldiers filed out of the imperial tent, leaving him alone.

  He sat down on the edge of the cot. He shook his head. The night before, Tanilis and he had shared the cot first in triumph, then in terror. Now she was dead, and Bagradas' well-meaning toast did not, could not, begin to do justice to what she'd accomplished. Zaidas understood far more. Krispos wondered how much he understood himself.

  Too much had happened too fast—his emotions were still several jumps behind events. Instead of victorious or full of grief, he mostly felt battered, as if he'd gone through rapids without a boat.

  He drained his cup, then poured another and drained that. Then he set down the jar of wine. Tanilis would have wanted him to stop, he thought: he'd need a clear head come morning. He undressed and lay down where he had lain with Tanilis; the scent of her still clung to the blanket. Tears filled his eyes. He angrily brushed them aside. Tears were no fit monument for Tanilis. Finishing what she'd made possible was. He did his best to sleep.

  "Majesty!" a Haloga guard boomed. "There's stirring inside Pliskavos, Majesty."

  Krispos woke with a grunt. A guttering lamp gave the tent all the light it had; the sun was not yet up. "I'll be out soon," he called. He got out of bed, used the chamber pot, and put on his gilded coat of mail.

  He saw the eastern sky had turned gray. "What's toward?" he asked the guardsman.

  "That we don't yet know, Majesty. But through the grates of the portcullises some scouts have spied the warriors within Pliskavos milling about. Come the dawn, we'll have a better notion of why."

  "True enough," Krispos said. "We'd best be ready for the worst, though." Night or day, a detachment of military musicians remained on duty. Krispos went over to them. "Call the men from their tents and to assembly." As the martial music rang out, he hurried up to the palisade to see what was going on for himself.

  As the guard had said, no one could tell just what was going on in Pliskavos, but something definitely was. The wooden gates had been burned to ashes when the wall caught fire, but the portcullises' iron grills survived. Through the grillwork Krispos saw shadowy motion. He could not make out more than that, even as twilight brightened toward dawn.

  Behind him, noise quickly built as the imperial army readied itself for whatever might come. Men called back and forth; underofficers shouted; swords and quivers and armor rattled; horses snorted and complained as troopers tightened girths. Through it all, the musicians kept playing. Their music got louder, too, as more of them came on duty.

  The sun rose. Krispos sketched Phos' circle over his heart as he murmured the creed. It was also on other men's lips as they caught the day's first sight of the chiefest symbol of the good god.

  Mammianos came up to Krispos. He said, "If they are going to try to break out, your Majesty, do you want to meet them behind the palisade or before it?"

  "If everything goes well, meeting them behind the palisade would be cheapest," Krispos mused. "But we'd be stretched all along the line around Pliskavos, and they might well rush their men at one point and smash their way through us." He rubbed his chin. "I hate to say it, but I think we have to meet them face to face. What do you say, Mammianos? I halfway hope you can talk me out of it."

  The fat general grunted, far from happily. "No, I fear you have the right of it, your Majesty. I was hoping you could talk me round to the other way, but you see the same dangers I do." He grunted again. "I'll pass on the word, then."

  "Thank you, eminent sir."

  The musicians' calls changed from Assembly to Battle Stations. Officers' orders amplified the music. "No, not behind the rampart, lads. Today we're going to let them see what they'll be tangling with if they have the stones for it."

  Krispos made his own way back through the crowd to the imperial tent. As he'd expected, Progress was saddled and waiting for him. He checked the straps under the saddle for tightness, then swung his left foot into the stirrup. Climbing onto Progress reminded him how Mavros had helped him choose the big bay gelding, and helped haggle the price down, too.

  "One more win, foster brother of mine—one more win and you and your mother are both avenged," he said softly.

  He rode out through a gap in the palisade and took his place at the center of the imperial army that was rapidly forming up in front of Pliskavos. He thought about sending his heralds up to the town to call once more for the Halogai to surrender, but decided not to. Soon enough the northerners would show what they intended to do.

  The thought had hardly crossed his mind when the portcullises began to rise. They did not move smoothly; one, indeed, warped by the heat of the burning wall, stuck in its track with its spiked lower edge about four feet off the ground. That did not keep hundreds of armed Halogai from ducking under it as they filed out of Pliskavos. More of the big blond warriors came through other gates.

  "They don't look like men about to yield," Mammianos said.

  "No, they don't," Krispos agreed glumly. The leading ranks of Halogai carried big shields that protected them almost from head to foot. Behind that shield wall—almost a palisade in itself—the rest of the northerners began to deploy. Krispos swore. "If we had all our men in place, we could break them before they got set up themselves." He scowled at the Halogai. "By the good god, let's hit them anyway. With us mounted, we can choose when and where the attack goes in."

  "Aye, Majesty." Mammianos opened his mouth to shout orders, then stopped, staring in amazement at one of the gates where the portcullis had gone all the way up.

  Krispos followed his gaze. He started, too. A company of Halo
gai on horseback was coming out. "I didn't think any of them were riders," he said.

  "I didn't, either." Mammianos made a noise half cough, half chuckle. "By the look of them, they aren't too sure themselves."

  The Halogai were on Kubrati ponies, the only sort of horses they could have found inside Pliskavos. Some of the blond warriors so outmatched their mounts in size that their feet almost brushed the ground. They brandished swords and axes as they formed a ragged line. From his own experience in the courtyard of the High Temple, Krispos knew a footsoldier's axe was no proper weapon for a cavalryman.

  "They do try to learn new things, don't they?" Mammianos said in a thoughtful tone. "That makes them more dangerous, or rather dangerous in a different sort of way, than, say, the Makuraners, who do what they do very well, but always in the same old way."

  "If they want to learn, let's see that they pay for their first lesson." Krispos turned to a courier. "Order Bagradas to send one of his companies out into the ground between our army and the barbarians. We'll find out what sort of riders they are." The courier grinned nastily as he hurried away.

  Bagradas' troopers, a band of archers and lancers about equal in numbers to the mounted Halogai, rode into the no-man's-land. There they stopped and waited. After a moment the Halogai understood the challenge. They yelled and spurred their horses toward the imperials.

  The Videssians also raised a shout. They urged their horses forward, too. The archers used their knees to control their mounts as they let fly again and again. A couple of Halogai fell from the saddle. More ponies were wounded and went bounding out of the fight, beyond the ability of their inexperienced riders to control.

  But the archers could account for only so many of their foes before the two companies came together. Then it was the lancers' turn. Their long spears gave them far greater reach than the northerners. They spitted Halogai out of the saddle without getting close enough for their foes to strike back. The imperials had also mastered the art of fighting as a unit rather than man by man. The Halogai fought that way afoot, but had never practiced it on horseback. As Krispos had been sure they would, they paid dearly for instruction.

  Finally, however brave they were, the Halogai could bear no more. They wheeled their horses and fled for the protection of their comrades on foot. The imperials pursued. The archers accounted for several more men before they and their comrades turned about and rode back to their own lines. The Videssians cheered thunderously. The Halogai, with nothing to cheer about, advanced on the imperial army in grim silence.

  "They must be getting desperate, to challenge us mounted when they can barely stay on their horses," Mammianos observed.

  "Our cavalry's beaten them again and again, first south of the mountains and now up here," Krispos answered. "If they are desperate, we've made them that way. And now, remember, they don't have Harvas to help them any more." I hope they don't, he added to himself.

  "Aye, that's so." Mammianos cocked his head to one side. "From what I hear, we have the lady Tanilis and you to thank for it, your Majesty."

  "Give the lady the credit," Krispos said firmly. "If it had just been me, you'd be looking for a new Emperor right now, or more likely in too much trouble to worry about finding one."

  Companies of horse archers cantered forward to pour arrows into the oncoming Halogai. They could not miss such a bunched target, but did less damage than Krispos had hoped. The first ranks of northerners had those head-to-foot shields; the men behind them raised their round wooden bucklers high to turn aside the shafts. Some got through, but not enough. Inexorable as the tide, the Halogai tramped forward.

  The Videssian archers withdrew into the protection of their line. The musicians sounded the charge. Lancers couched spears, dug spurs into horses' flanks. Slowly at first, then faster and fester, they rumbled toward the Halogai.

  "This isn't going to be pretty," Mammianos shouted over the thunder of hoofbeats.

  "So long as it works," Krispos shouted back. The two lines collided then. Videssian horsemen spitted northerners, using their mounts to bowl over and ride down others. Unlike the cavalry fight, they did not have it all their own way, not for a moment. At close quarters, the axes of the Halogai hewed down men and horses alike; those big, swift strokes bit through mail shirts to hack flesh and split bones.

  The battle line did not move twenty yards forward or back for some time. Halogai pressed forward as their comrades were killed. They blunted charge after charge by fresh troops of lancers. Each side dragged its wounded to safety as best it could. Dead horses and soldiers hindered the living from reaching one another to slay some more.

  Shouts of alarm rose from the far right as the northerners, borrowing from the Videssian book, tried to slide round the imperial army's flank. After a few tense minutes, a messenger reported to Krispos. "We've held 'em, Majesty, looks like. A good many bowmen had to pull out their sabers before we managed it, though."

  "That's why they carry them," Krispos answered.

  The imperials shouted his name over and over. They also had another cry, one calculated to unnerve the Halogai. "Where's Harvas Black-Robe?" The northerners were not using the wizard's name as their war cry. When they shouted, they most often called the name Svenkel.

  Krispos learned soon enough who Svenkel was. An enormous Haloga, tall even for that big breed, swung an axe that would have impressed the imperial headsman. No one came within its length of him and lived. After he felled a Videssian with a stroke that caved in the luckless fellow's chest, all the northerners who saw cried out his name. He had presence as well as strength and warrior's skill: before he went back to battle, he waved to show he heard the cheers.

  "Shall we send one of our champions against him?" Mammianos asked.

  "Why risk a champion?" Krispos said. "Enough arrows will take care of him. Give the archers word to shoot at him till he goes down."

  "That's not sporting," Mammianos said with a laugh, "but it's the right way to go about war. Let's just see how long Svenkel the hero lasts."

  But along with being a warrior bold even by Haloga standards, Svenkel the hero was far from a fool. When three or four arrows in quick succession pincushioned his shield and another glanced off his helm, he knew he was a marked man. Instead of drawing back among his comrades, as most might have done, he led a wedge of northerners into the center of the imperial line against his countrymen who warded Krispos. They were axemen like himself; when they tried to slay him, he could strike back.

  The imperial guards had seen hard fighting in all the clashes since the campaign began south of Imbros. The Halogai who were hale still fought as fiercely as ever, but their ranks had been thinned. Svenkel's wedge punched deep. If it broke through, it would cut the imperial army in half.

  Krispos drew his saber. He looked at Mammianos. The fat general also had his sword out. He shrugged. "Ah, well, your Majesty, sometimes we have to be sporting, whether we want to or not."

  "So we do." Krispos raised his voice and cried, "Videssos!" He spurred Progress toward the sagging line of guardsmen. Mammianos rode with him. So did the couriers who had congregated around them.

  By then, only a handful of Halogai in imperial service stood in Svenkel's way. He must have seen victory just ahead. His mouth flew open in a great snarl when horsemen rode up to aid the guards. Then he realized who led the makeshift band. In Videssian, he shouted to Krispos: "Leader to leader, then!"

  It didn't quite work that way; war was too chaotic a business to conform to anyone's expectations, even a hero's. Krispos got into the battle a few feet to Svenkel's right, against a Haloga almost as big as the northern chieftain. The fellow swung up his axe to chop at Progress. Before he could, Krispos slashed at his face. He missed, but made the Haloga shift his weight backward so his own stroke fell short. Krispos slashed again. This time he felt his blade bite. The Haloga howled and reeled away, clutching a forearm gashed to the bone.

  Seeing Krispos in the fight made his surviving guardsmen redouble their e
fforts. Svenkel's men still battled for all they were worth, but could push forward no farther. The guards threw themselves at Svenkel, one after another. One after another he beat them back. His strokes never faltered; he might have been a siege engine himself, powered by twisted cords rather than flesh and sinew.

  As the guardsmen sought to cut down Svenkel, so his warriors went for Krispos. Krispos fought desperately, trying for nothing more than staying alive. He knew he was no great master of the soldier's art and was very glad when Geirrod came up to stand by Progress' right flank and help him beat back the foe.

  Step by step, some of Svenkel's men began to give ground. Others, stubborn with the peculiar Haloga stubbornness, preferred dying where they stood to falling back. Die they did, one after another, along with the imperial guardsmen and Videssian troopers they slew before they went down.

  There at the forefront of the fighting, what scholarly chroniclers would later call a line hardly deserved such a dignified name. It was more like knots of grunting, cursing, sweating, bleeding men all entangled with one another. Krispos struck and struck and struck—and knew most of his strokes were useless, either because they clove only air or because they rebounded from mail. He did not much mind; no one in that crush could have hoped to do better.

  Then he saw a Haloga close by swing up an axe to chop at one of the guardsmen. He lashed out with his saber. It cut deep into the northerner's wrist. The axe flew from his hand. The Haloga bellowed in pain and whirled around.

  Krispos was startled to see it was Svenkel. Svenkel looked startled, too, but was neither too startled nor too badly hurt to raise his shield before Krispos could cut at him again. But that did not save him for long. Geirrod's axe bit into the shield, once, twice ... on the third blow, the round slab of wood split in two. Geirrod struck once more. Blood sprayed. Svenkel's armor clattered as he fell.

  The imperials raised a great cheer. The Halogai still fought ferociously, but something at last went out of them with their chieftain's death. Now the fighters in the wedge that had been his drew back more quickly. As they did so, Geirrod turned to Krispos and said, "Out of the line for you now, Majesty. You did what was needful; we'll go on from here."