Swords of the Legion (Videssos)

by Harry Turtledove

  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 w
ith 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?”