The Stolen Throne tot-1

by Harry Turtledove

  But fighting hard was not enough. With their line broken on the right, under simultaneous attack from flank and front, they had to retreat and keep retreating so they would not have whole bands of men cut off and captured or slain. After a while, retreat took on a momentum of its own.

  Smerdis' men did not push the pursuit as hard as they might have. What point? They had the victory they had needed. Sharbaraz would not parade into Mashiz: Sharbaraz would not go into Mashiz at all, not now. And as soon as word of that spread through Makuran, many who had been sitting on the fence between the two rival Kings of Kings would decide in favor of the man who held the capital.

  Three farsangs east of the battlefield, Sharbaraz ordered his men to halt for the night. The bulk of the army, or what was left of it, obeyed, but a flow of men, less than a flood but more than a trickle, kept on streaming east and south. "The first ticks dropping off the horse that fed 'em," Abivard said bitterly.

  "Bad choice of metaphor," Sharbaraz answered with the air of someone criticizing a bard's work. "Ticks leave a horse when it's dead, and we still have life in us."

  "Aye, Majesty," Abivard said. Inside, though, he wondered how much of Sharbaraz's defiance consisted of keeping up a brave front, maybe more for himself than for anyone else. A lot of it, he feared. A rebel needed win after win until power was his. Now the rightful King of Kings had to be wondering how to rally his men and turn his right to the throne into real possession of it.

  "We'll renew the assault in the morning," Sharbaraz said, "making sure this time that we've covered the mouths to all the passes."

  "Aye, Majesty," Abivard repeated dutifully, but he didn't believe it, not for a moment. Fraortish eldest of all, the most fiery of the Prophets Four, couldn't have rallied the army to a renewed assault if he had promised the God would come through the Void and fight alongside Sharbaraz's men.

  Even Sharbaraz seemed to sense his words rang hollow. "Well, we'll see what seems best when morning comes," he said.

  Abivard trudged wearily back to the baggage train. He breathed a silent prayer of thanks that Smerdis' men hadn't pressed the pursuit; if they had, they might have overrun the train and captured the wagon that carried Roshnani and Denak.

  His principal wife and sister exclaimed in delight and relief when he went up into the wagon, and then again when he told them Sharbaraz remained hale. "But what happens next?" Roshnani asked. "With the way to Mashiz blocked, what do we do?"

  "His Majesty spoke of a new attack tomorrow," Abivard said. Roshnani rolled her eyes and then tried to pretend she hadn't. Even Denak, who supported Sharbaraz as automatically as she breathed, didn't say anything to that. If Denak didn't believe the attack would come off, it was surely foredoomed.

  Roshnani called to one of the serving women, who fetched Abivard a mug of wine. He drained it, sprawled out on the carpet in Roshnani's cubicle to relax for a moment, and fell asleep before he realized it.

  * * *

  Attack came the next morning, but Sharbaraz's men did not launch it. Perhaps emboldened by their victory, Smerdis' cavalry, some archers, the rest lancers, followed their foes through the night and struck just as dawn was breaking. Sharbaraz's followers outnumbered them. It did not help. They were demoralized from losing the day before and disorganized from camping hastily after a retreat they had not expected to have to make.

  Some of them fought well; others broke and fled as soon as the first arrows hissed down among them. The army as a whole held its own till about midmorning. After that, men began falling back again in spite of desperate shouts from Sharbaraz and their officers. Scenting victory, Smerdis' men kept up the pressure, attacking wherever they saw weakness.

  By the end of the day, Sharbaraz's army had returned to the land of the Thousand Cities, the floodplain of the Tutub and the Tib. The rightful King of Kings looked stunned, as if he had never imagined such a disaster overfalling him. Abivard hadn't imagined it, either, so he suspected he looked stunned, too.

  "I don't think I can rally them straightaway," Sharbaraz said gloomily. "Best perhaps to fall back to country where the nobles and people back us with whole hearts, there to rebuild our strength to fight again another day."

  Fall back to the northwest, he meant: essentially what Smerdis had offered him before the sorcerous attack, and what he had rejected with a sneer then. But at that point of the civil war, he had been winning battles and Smerdis losing. After a couple of losses of his own, he must have thought keeping some of the flock better than losing it all.

  "Aye, Majesty, perhaps that would be for the best," Abivard said. Sharbaraz was right; the army he led had lost heart, and Smerdis' no doubt gained a corresponding amount. Under such circumstances, inviting battle also invited disaster. And, while a return to the northwest would seem like exile to the rightful King of Kings, to Abivard it would be going home. He wondered how his brother-and his domain-fared. He had heard not a word since he set out on campaign.

  The next morning, Sharbaraz ordered his men to turn south, to skirt the Dilbat Mountains again so they could head north and west into territory friendlier to his cause than the Land of the Thousand Cities. Smerdis' men dogged their trail, not in such numbers as to invite attack, but always lurking, watching, reporting every movement back to their superiors.

  Sharbaraz's soldiers had not ridden more than a farsang when they found canals broken open to spill out their water and flood the plain, making the way impassable. On the far side, more of Smerdis' soldiers sat their horses, watching with evident pleasure the discomfiture of their foes.

  Abivard shook his fist at them. "Where now, Majesty?" he asked. "They've blocked the way homeward."

  "I know." Sharbaraz looked as hunted as Abivard felt. "Here in the valleys of the Tutub and the Tib, we're like flies trying to get out of a spider's web. And the spider can push us to any piece of the web he likes before strolling over and sinking his fangs into the withered husk of our army."

  "There's a pleasant picture." Abivard's stomach churned. "Have we any way to start moving by our own will rather than Smerdis'?"

  "Perhaps if we strike north and get over one or two of the major canals before they can break the banks and open the sluices. The thing could be done; bridges of boats span the more important waterways."

  The army tried. When they got to the canal Sharbaraz had wanted to cross, they found the boats drawn up on the far bank. More of Smerdis' men were strung out along the far bank, too, waiting to see if Sharbaraz would try to force a crossing. They quickly found the canal was too deep to ford.

  Sharbaraz sighed. "We'd be asking to get massacred if I had the men swim across, with or without their horses. We can't go south, we can't go north, there's an army behind us to keep us from turning back to the west… even if the men would obey."

  Sharbaraz thought in terms of strategy, Abivard in the more homely things he had had to worry about back at the domain. "They're herding us," he said.

  "Aye, they are, and drop me into the Void if I can see what to do about it, either," Sharbaraz said. "I can't reach Smerdis' traitors there-" He pointed north across the canal. "-or to the south, and if I do make the army turn against the turncoats between us and Mashiz, they won't even deign to accept battle; I can see that already. They'll just fall back and open more canals to hold us up. They can wreck them faster than we can fix them."

  "I fear you're right, Majesty," Abivard said. "We've already crossed the headwaters of the Tib. What happens if they force us across the Tutub, as well? What's on the far side of the Land of the Thousand Cities?"

  "Scrub country, near desert, and then Videssos." Sharbaraz spat. "Nothing I want to visit, I assure you."

  But in spite of what Sharbaraz wanted, the army had to keep moving east. They could not stay in one place more than a couple of days at a time; after that, they began to run low on food and fodder both. Smerdis' men and the canals they had opened blocked the way in other directions. The folk of the Thousand Cities shut themselves up behind their walls a
nd would not treat with Sharbaraz.

  "I might as well be leading Videssians," he fumed. "I'd pay the locals well, with money and later with exemptions, to aid me in setting the canals aright and free us up to maneuver… but they will not hear me."

  Okhos chanced to be riding close to Sharbaraz when the rightful King of Kings loosed that blast. He said, "Majesty, when you sit on your throne as you should, surely you will take such vengeance on them as to make the bards sing and miscreants shudder a thousand years from now."

  "Oh, a few city governors will find themselves short a head come the day-no doubt about that," Sharbaraz told Roshnani's brother. "But past that, what point to vengeance? Kill the peasants and craftsmen and where do the realm's taxes come from?"

  Okhos stared; he was still new at running a domain, let alone the realm of Makuran. After a moment he asked, "Do taxes count for more than honor?"

  "Sometimes," Sharbaraz answered, which made Okhos' eyes get wider. The rightful King of Kings went on, "Besides, the peasants and craftsmen are but obeying the command of their governors. How can I fault them for that when I would expect it of them were those governors mine? Massacre strikes me as wasteful. I'll have revenge, aye, but measured revenge."

  Okhos considered that as he would have a lesson from a tutor. At last he said, "Your Majesty is wise."

  "My Majesty is bloody tired," Sharbaraz said. "And if I were so wise, I'd be sitting in Mashiz right now, instead of slogging through the Land of the Thousand Cities." A bug landed on his cheek. He slapped at himself, but it flew away before his hand landed. "They ought to call these river valleys the land of the Ten Million Flies. It seems to have more of them than anything else."

  "Oh, I don't know, Majesty," Abivard said. "In my humble opinion, it breeds more mosquitoes still." He scratched at a welt on his arm.

  Sharbaraz snorted. His laugh was grim but a laugh, one of the few Abivard had heard from him since things went wrong in front of Mashiz. "Brother-in-law of mine, I admit it: you may be right."

  Taking advantage of his sovereign's relatively good humor, Abivard said, "May I speak, Majesty?" At Sharbaraz's nod, he went on, "You may be wise to show yourself moderate in more things than vengeance on the Land of the Thousand Cities. Throwing an army headlong into battle cost your father everything and has badly hurt you as well."

  The scowl he got from the rightful King of Kings neither surprised nor upset him; how often did Sharbaraz hear criticism? After a long pause, though, Sharbaraz slowly nodded. "Again, you may be right. I aim to do my foe as much harm as I can, as quickly as I can. That I sometimes do myself harm as well-how could I deny it?" His wave encompassed the hot floodplain across which his unhappy army perforce traveled.

  Try as he would, he found no opportunity to break free of the network of flooded canals, hostile cities, and enemy forces that hemmed him in. Smerdis, by all appearances, cared nothing for the impetuous charge if he could get results without it. Hardly shooting an arrow, his men drove Sharbaraz's riders ever farther east.

  "We'll be at the Tutub soon," Sharbaraz raged. "What then? Does he think we'll drown ourselves in it for his convenience?"

  "I'm sure he wishes we would; that would be easiest for him," Abivard answered. "He makes war like a man who used to head the mint: he spends nothing more than he has to. That cheese-paring cost him west of the Dilbat Mountains, but it serves him well here."

  Sharbaraz swore at him and rode off in a fury. Abivard wondered what would happen when they came to the Tutub. He was ready to bet the river would be too wide and deep and swift to ford. If Smerdis' men backed their foes against it, Sharbaraz would have no choice but to throw his army at that part of Smerdis' that looked to be most nearly accessible. Abivard didn't expect victory in such an effort, but he would follow without hesitation the man he had chosen as his sovereign. What were the odds Sharbaraz would have escaped from Nalgis Crag stronghold? If he had managed that, anything might happen.

  The thought consoled Abivard until he realized how spiderweb-thin was the line that ran from might to would.

  Pushed on, unable to make a stand because their worst enemies were hunger and broken canals rather than archers and lancers, Sharbaraz's men reached the Tutub three days later. Abivard fully expected to have to form up for a last stand of desperate battle. After backing Sharbaraz, he was not dead keen on falling into Smerdis' hands in any case.

  He wished Roshnani and Denak hadn't persuaded Sharbaraz and him to let them accompany the campaign. Back at Vek Rud stronghold, they would have been safe enough, no matter what happened to their husbands. HereBut, to his surprise, scouts who rode up and down the river came back with word that a bridge of boats still stretched across it. "We'll go over," Sharbaraz said at once. "On the far side of the Tutub, we'll be able to move as we please, less harassed by the troops who dog us."

  Abivard's horse did not like the way the planks laid across the boats shifted under its feet. It snorted and sidestepped and did its best not to go forward until he booted it in the ribs hard enough to gain its undivided attention.

  The far side of the Tutub seemed much like the near one. But as soon as Sharbaraz's army had crossed, Smerdis' men rode up and set fire to the bridge of boats. The rising smoke made Abivard wonder, too late, how many boats were left on the east bank of the river to aid Sharbaraz's army in returning to the fray. He didn't know, but he had the feeling the answer would be none.

  "We can't cross back and we can't stay here long," Abivard said to Roshnani that evening as the unhappy army made camp. "That leaves us little choice."

  "If we had a choice, which would be better?" she asked.

  "Even if we had a choice, neither would be much good," Abivard answered. "Back on the western side of the Tutub, we'd face all the problems that led to our getting trapped here in the first place. And even if we had all the livestock and grain and fruit in the world at our fingertips here, so what? Being King of Kings for the land east of the Tutub is like being Mobedhan-mobhed for the Khamorth. Not enough of them worship the God to make them need a chief servant for him, and this land is about enough to rate a dihqan, but not a sovereign."

  "You will have seen more of it than I, since I'm closed up here in this wagon," Roshnani said. Denak would have sounded furious at that; Roshnani just stated it matter-of-factly, to let Abivard draw what conclusions from it he would. She went on, "Your point is well made. Both choices you named seem evil. What if we went east, then?"

  Abivard shook his head, a gesture full of patience, love, and the desire to be as gentle with her naivete as he could. "East of here is scrub country, about as bad as the land between oases back in the northwest. It's no place for us to stay and regather our strength. And east of that lies-Videssos."

  He spoke the name with a shudder; to him, as to any Makuraner warrior, Videssos was and could only be the enemy. But Roshnani pounced on it like a cat leaping after a mouse that appeared from a hole it hadn't noticed: "Why don't we fare into Videssos, then? Their Avtokrator-do I rightly remember his name as Likinios? — could hardly do worse by us than Smerdis Pimp of Pimps, could he?" She brought out the contemptuous soldierly title with a fine curl of her lip.

  Abivard opened his mouth to begin an automatic condemnation of the idea, but stopped with it unuttered. Put that way, it could not be dismissed out of hand. What he did say was, "I don't see much point in throwing myself on a Videssian's mercy when he's not likely to treat me any better than Smerdis would, either."

  Once she got a notion, Roshnani was not one to abandon it before she had taken it as far as it would go. She said, "Why wouldn't he treat Sharbaraz better? Likinios is a King of Kings, too, of sorts. Does he take kindly to having a cousin steal a throne that ought to belong to a son? If he does, one fine day he may find a cousin stealing his own throne."

  "That's-" Abivard started to say it was foolish and ridiculous, but it wasn't. If Smerdis had the gall to usurp the throne, why shouldn't a Videssian do likewise? By all accounts, Videssians were knavish a
nd thieving by nature. If one of their Emperors left a throne lying around vacant, somebody to whom it didn't properly belong would try to abscond with it. "That's… not a bad idea," he finished in tones of wonder.

  "My thought was simple: what have we to lose by going into Videssos?" Roshnani said.

  While Abivard looked for an answer there, something else occurred to him: the third piece of Tanshar's prophecy. "Where am I likelier to find a narrow stretch of sea than in Videssos?" he said.

  Roshnani's eyes got wide. "I hadn't thought of that," she said. "If the prophecy itself is urging us eastward-"

  Denak stuck her head through the cloth curtain that screened off Roshnani's cubicle. She nodded to her brother, then said, "Eastward? How can we think of going eastward? Not only would we be fleeing, but there's nothing in that direction but scrub and desert, anyhow."

  "There's also Videssos, beyond the scrub," Roshnani answered, which made Denak's eyes widen in turn. Speaking alternate sentences, almost like characters out of a traveling play about one of the Prophets Four, she and Abivard explained their reasons for wanting to take refuge in the Empire and seek aid from the Avtokrator.

  When they had finished, Denak stared from one of them to the other. "I thought we were in a box," she said. "So did Sharbaraz. So, no doubt, did Smerdis-he has to be looking forward to finishing us off at his leisure. But if a box doesn't have to stay a box, if we can break down one of the sides and escape in a way no one imagined-"

  Abivard raised a warning hand. "We have no guarantees if we try this," he reminded his sister. "The Videssians may prove as wicked and treacherous as the tales say they are, or they may take us for enemies and attack no matter what we do to show them we're friends. Or, for that matter, some of the men here may prefer Smerdis' mercy to what they think they'll find in Videssos. We'll lose more than a handful to desertion, I fear."