Krispos of Videssos

by Harry Turtledove

  "What's wrong?" Krispos asked.

  One of the sorcerers, a young, gangly man whose thin beard imperfectly covered his acne scars, bowed and said, "Your Majesty, I'm called Zaidas. I feel—not a wrongness ahead, nor even a lack of rightness, but rather—oh, how best to say it?—an absence of both rightness and wrongness, which could be unusual." He cracked his knuckles and peered nervously at the innocent-appearing countryside.

  "If you don't sense anything, who knows what's hiding there? Is that what you're saying?" Krispos asked. Zaidas nodded. Krispos turned to the other mages. "Do you also feel this, ah, absence?"

  "No, Majesty," one of them said. "That does not mean it is not there, though. Despite his youth, Zaidas has great and unusual sensitivity, which is the reason we bade him accompany us. What he perceives, or fails to perceive, may well be genuine." Zaidas' larynx bobbed up and down as he shot his colleague a grateful glance.

  Krispos made a sour face. " 'May well be' cuts no ice, sorcerous sirs. I could starve, hunting a grouse that may well be there. How do we find out?"

  Trokoundos strolled up just then to join the discussion. "We find out by testing. Is it not so, brothers?" The other wizards nodded. Trokoundos went on, "The Lord with the great and good mind willing, we may even surprise Harvas, who should be confident we've noticed nothing."

  Trokoundos was an able mage, but no general. "If he's there, he'll know we've noticed," Krispos said. "We don't form line of battle every time a rabbit hops across the road. What we have to find out is, what is our line of battle moving toward?"

  "You're right, of course, your Majesty." Trokoundos shook his head in chagrin, then began a technical discussion with the rest of the wizards that lost Krispos by the fourth sentence. He was beginning to wonder if they would spend the whole morning chattering at one another when Trokoundos seemed to remember he was there. The mage said, "Your Majesty, a number of spells could create the illusion of normality ahead. We think one is more likely, given that Harvas could both pervert and amplify its power through blood sacrifice. We will try to break through it now, assuming it to be the one we guess."

  "Do it," Krispos said at once. Acting against Harvas instead of reacting to him felt like a victory in itself.

  The wizards went to work with the practiced efficiency of a squad of soldiers who had fought side by side for years. Krispos watched Trokoundos, who smeared his eyelids with an ointment another mage ceremoniously handed him. "The gall of a cat mixed with the fat of an all-white hen," Trokoundos explained. "It gives the power to see that which others may not."

  He held up a pale-green stone and a goldpiece, touched the two of them together. "Chrysolite and gold drive away foolishness and expel fantasies, the good god willing." Behind him, the voice of the rest of the wizards rose and fell as some invoked Phos while others chanted to bring their building spell to sharper focus.

  A wizard threw a gray-green leaf on a brazier; the puff of smoke that arose smelled sweet. Trokoundos set a small, sparkling stone in a copper bowl, smashed it to fragments with a silver hammer. "Opal and laurel, when used with the proper spell, may render a man—or, with sufficient strength, maybe, an army—invisible. Thus we destroy both, and thus we destroy with spell." With the last words Trokoundos' voice rose to a shout. His right finger stabbed out toward the peaceful-looking landscape ahead. For a long moment, for more than a moment, nothing happened. Krispos glared at Zaidas, who was watching the unchanged terrain with the same dejected expression his colleagues bore. Aye, he was very sensitive, Krispos thought—he could even detect traps that weren't there.

  Then the air rippled, as if it were the surface of a rough-running stream. Krispos blinked and rubbed at his eyes. Trokoundos raised a fist and shouted in triumph. Zaidas looked like a man reprieved when the sword was already on its way up. And while the landscape to the north did not change, when the ripples cleared they revealed a great army of footsoldiers drawn up in battle array across the road, across the fields, one end of their line anchored by a pond, the other by a grove of apple trees. They could not have been more than a mile away.

  Horns cried out behind Krispos. Drums thumped. Pipes squealed. His men shouted. They saw the enemy, too, then. He gave the wizards a formal military salute. "Thank you, magical sirs. Without you, we would have blundered straight into them."

  Just then Harvas' men must have realized they were discovered. They shouted, too, not with the disciplined hurrah of Videssian troops but loud and long and fierce, like so many bloodthirsty wild beasts. The sun sparked cheerfully off axe blades, helms, and mail coats as they surged toward the imperial army.

  Krispos turned to the wizards once more. "Magical sirs, if it's to be battle, I suggest you get clear before you're caught in the middle." That possibility did not seem to have occurred to some of the sorcerers. They scrambled onto horses and mules and rode off with remarkable celerity. Krispos rode away, too, back to where the imperial standard snapped in the breeze at the center of the imperial line.

  Mammianos greeted him with a salute and a wry grin. "Worried for a minute there that I'd have to run this battle without you," the fat general grunted.

  "Nice to know you think I'm of some use," Krispos answered.

  Mammianos grunted again. His grin got wider. He said, "Aye, you're of some use, your Majesty. Fair gave me a turn, it did, when those buggers appeared out of thin air. If we'd just walked on into them, well, it could have ruined our whole day."

  "That's one way to put it, yes." Krispos grinned, too, at Mammianos' sangfroid. He ran an eye up and down the Videssian line. It was as he and his marshals had planned, with lancers—some mounted on horses wearing mail of their own—in the front ranks on either wing and archers behind them, ready to shoot over their heads into the ranks of the enemy. In the center stood the Halogai of the imperial guard.

  The guardsmen did not know it, but native units on either side had orders to turn on them if they went over to Harvas. That might suffice to keep the imperial army alive. Krispos knew it would not save him. He drew his saber and scowled at the advancing enemy.

  Mammianos spoke to the musicians. New calls rang through the air. The horsemen on either wing slid forward, seeking to envelop Harvas' front. Krispos scowled again, this time when he noticed how broad that front was. "He has more men than we'd reckoned," he said to Mammianos.

  "Aye, so he does," the general agreed glumly. "The northerners must have been streaming south from Halogaland ever since Harvas seized Kubrat. To them the land and climate look good."

  "True, true." Krispos had entertained the same thought himself. He'd spent several years north of the Paristrian Mountains after Kubrati raiders kidnapped everyone in his village. He remembered Kubrat as bleak and cold. If Halogai found it attractive, he shivered to think what that said of their homeland.

  Then he stopped worrying about Halogaland and started worrying about the Halogai in front of him. Harvas' men fought with the same disregard for life and limb—their own or their foes'—as did the northerners who served Videssos. They shouted their evil chieftain's name as they swung their axes in sweeping arcs of death.

  The imperials shouted, too. The cry Krispos heard most often was a cry for revenge: "Imbros!" The lines crashed together in bloody collision. After moments of that fight, even men previously uninitiated into the red brotherhood of war could honestly call themselves veterans. A little righting against the northerners went a long way.

  Here a lancer spitted a Haloga, as if to roast him over some huge fire. There another Haloga crashed to the ground, his armor clattering about him, as a cleverly aimed arrow found the gap between shield top and helm. But Harvas' men dealt out deadly wounds as well as suffering them. Here an axeman hewed down first horse and then rider, splashing friend and foe alike with gore. There yet another northerner, already bleeding from a dozen wounds, pulled a Videssian from the saddle and stabbed him before falling in death.

  In front of Krispos, the combat was footsoldier against footsoldier, Haloga a
gainst Haloga, as the warriors who followed Harvas met those who had given their allegiance to the Avtokrator of the Videssians. As in any battle where brother met brother, that was the fiercest fight of all, a war within the greater war. The Halogai swung and struck and swung again, all the while cursing one another for having chosen the wrong side. Once hatred was too hot even for weapons, as two Halogai who had been screaming abuse as they fought threw aside axes and shields to batter each other with fists.

  The northerners who had taken Videssos' gold never wavered; Krispos knew shame for having doubted them. All because they'd sworn they would, they battled and bled and died for a land that was not theirs, with a courage few of its native sons could match.

  "How do we fare?" Krispos shouted to Mammianos.

  "We're holding them," the general shouted back. "From all I can tell, that's better than Agapetos or Mavros—Phos keep them in his light—ever managed to do. If the wizards can keep Harvas from buggering us while we're looking the other way, we may end up celebrating the day instead of cursing it."

  Most of the wizards, by now, clustered behind the imperial line, not far from where Krispos sat atop Progress. They gathered in a tight knot around Zaidas; if any of their number could sense Harvas Black-Robe's next move, the young mage was probably the one. Krispos hoped his skinny shoulders could carry that weight of responsibility.

  Even as the thought crossed Krispos' mind, Zaidas jerked where he stood. He spoke rapidly to his comrades, who burst into action. Krispos noted what they did less closely than he ought have, for at that same moment he was afflicted by a deep and venomous itch. Put any man in armor and he will itch— sweat will dry on his skin, and he cannot scratch. Rather than go mad, he learns to ignore it. Krispos could not ignore this itch; it was as if cockroaches scrambled over the very core of him. Of themselves, his fingertips scraped against his gilded shirt of mail.

  And he was not alone. Up and down the Videssian line, men clawed at themselves, forgetting the foes before them. Harvas' warriors were not afflicted. In the twinkling of any eye, a score of imperial soldiers went down, too distracted by their torment even to protect themselves. The Videssian line wavered.

  Ice ran through Krispos, chilling even his itch for an instant.

  If this went on for long, the army would fall apart. Even as first blood welled from beneath torn nails, his head turned toward the wizards. Led by Trokoundos, they were incanting frantically. Those not actually involved in shaping the spell scratched as hard as anyone else. The ones who were casting it needed their hands for passes; the discipline they required to carry on would have made Pyrrhos jealous.

  All at once, as if a portcullis had fallen, the itching stopped. The imperials looked to their weapons again and cut down the Halogai who, confident they would not be able to resist, had thrust forward into their line.

  "A cheer for the mages of the Sorcerers' Collegium!" Krispos yelled. His soldiers took up the cry and made it ring out over the field. From behind the enemy line, an answering scream rose, a scream of such hatred, rage, and frustration that for a moment all other war cries, Videssian and Haloga alike, tremblingly fell silent. That, Krispos thought, was the voice of the man—if man he still was—who wanted to rule Videssos. He shuddered.

  Harvas' northerners seemed for a moment dismayed at the failure of their dark chieftain's magic. But with or without Harvas, they were warriors fierce and bold, men who had grown used to winning glory by always crushing their foes in combat; they would have been ashamed to be deprived of it now through defeat at the hands of Videssians. So they fought on, giving no quarter and seeking none.

  The Videssians had been more hesitant at the start of the fight. Some had experienced Harvas' sorcery in the campaigns of the summer before. All had heard of it, nor had the tales shrunk in the telling. Only now were they beginning to see, beginning to believe their wizards could counter Harvas, leaving the outcome of the battle to them alone. Battle against merely mortal foes held only terrors they already knew. They pressed against the Halogai with renewed spirit.

  Krispos realized Gnatios had done the Empire a great service by discovering Harvas' nature. He hoped for the patriarch's sake that his response to Rhisoulphos would prove benign. If it was not, Gnatios would answer for it, no matter what aid he had rendered in the fight against Harvas.

  A fresh charge from Harvas' men yanked his mind back to the immediate. The Halogai seemed to have inhuman endurance, to be as strong and uncomplaining as the horses the Videssians rode. They were roaring again, their blue eyes wide and staring, their faces blood-crimson. By their set expressions, many of them were drunk.

  The imperial guards met their cousins breast to breast, defied them to advance a foot. As one guard fell, another deliberately stepped forward to take his place. Fewer ranks stood between Krispos and the enemy than had been in place when the fight began.

  The shrieks of the wounded began to drown out war cries on both sides. Some hurt men staggered away from the line, clutching at themselves and biting their lips to hold back screams. Comrades dragged aside others, not least so they could reach over them to fight some more. Healer-priests, gray-faced with fatigue, did what they could for the most desperately hurt. No one helped the horses, whose screams were more piteous than those of the soldiers.

  Krispos saw, surprised, how long his shadow had grown. He glanced toward the sun. It had sunk far down in the west. The battle went on, still perfectly balanced. Though night was near, neither side showed any sign of giving way. Krispos had an uneasy vision of the fight coming down to a duel between the last living Videssian and his Haloga counterpart.

  Suddenly the wizards stirred again. Krispos ground his teeth. Harvas Black-Robe had his own notions of how the battle should end, and the strength and will to bring those notions to reality. For just an instant, Krispos' sight grew dim, as if night had already fallen. He rubbed at his eyes, nor was he the only Videssian to do so. But then his vision cleared. Once more Harvas screamed in rage and hate.

  Trokoundos walked over to Krispos. The mage looked as worn as any healer-priest, but sober triumph lit his eyes. "Your Majesty, he tried to draw the night and the darkness that is Skotos' down upon us. We foiled him more easily this time than before; that spell is potent, but can come from only one direction. Our strength together sufficed to wall it away."

  The assembled might of the finest wizards of the Sorcerers' Collegium, then, was more or less a match for Harvas Black-Robe alone. In a way, that was encouraging; Krispos had feared nothing and no one could match Harvas. But it was also frightening in and of itself, for it gave some notion of the might the sorcerer had acquired in the long years since he turned away from Phos toward Skotos.

  Harvas cried out again, this time in a tone of command. What his dark sorcery had failed to do, the axes of his followers might yet accomplish. The Halogai rushed forward in an all-out effort to break the ranks of their foes. "Steady, men, steady!" officers shouted from one end of the line to the other. It would do, Krispos thought, as a watchword for the Empire of Videssos. The northerners could rage like the sea; like Videssos the city's sea walls, the imperial army would hold them at bay.

  Hold them the army did, if barely. As the Haloga surge began to ebb, Mammianos nudged Krispos. "Now's our time to hit back."

  Krispos glanced west again. The sun was down now; the sky where it had set was red as the blood that splashed the battlefield. In the gathering gloom above, the evening star blazed bright and clear. "Aye," Krispos said. "Everything we have." He turned to the military musicians. "Sound the charge."

  High and sweet and urgent, the notes rang through the battle din. Krispos held his saber high over his head. "Come on!" he cried. "Will you let yourselves be beaten by a bunch of barbarians who fight on foot and don't know the first thing about horsemanship?"

  "No!" yelled every Videssian trooper who heard him.

  "Then show them what we can do!"

  The imperials raised a great, wordless shout and spurred
against Harvas' men. For several minutes the Halogai resisted as desperately and as successfully as their foes had not long before. Then, on the imperial left, a band of lancers at last broke through their line and got into their rear. More followed, their voices high and excited in triumph. Beset from front and rear at once, the Halogai could not withstand the Videssian onslaught. They broke and fled northward.

  Krispos set spurs to Progress. The big bay gelding snorted and bounded forward through the thinned ranks of the imperial bodyguards. Krispos was far from an enthusiastic warrior; he'd seen war young, and from a peasant's perspective. But now he wanted to strike a blow at the marauders who had done Videssos such grievous harm.

  His guardsmen shouted and grabbed for Progress' bridle, trying to hold him back. Krispos spurred the horse again, harder this time. All at once, quite abruptly, no one stood between him and the foe. Progress pounded toward Harvas' Halogai. The Videssian horsemen, seeing Krispos heading toward the fight, cheered even harder than they had before.

  A northerner turned to face him. The fellow wore a mail shirt that reached down to his knees, carried a hacked and battered round wooden shield. He was bareheaded; if he'd ever had a helmet, he'd lost it in the fighting. He still had his axe. It was streaked with the brown of drying blood and with fresh red. He chopped at Progress' forelegs.

  The stroke was too quick, and missed. Krispos slashed at the Haloga. He missed, too. Then Progress was past the man. Krispos never knew whether the northerner escaped or was finished by other Videssians. Battle, he had discovered, was often like that.

  Soon Progress caught up with another foe. This one did not turn. He kept trotting heavily toward the north, intent only on escape. Krispos aimed for the hand-wide gap between the base of his helmet and the collar of his coat of mail. He swung with all his strength. His saber clattered off iron. The blow jolted him in the saddle. The Haloga staggered but did not fall. His dogged trot went on.