Legion of Videssos

by Harry Turtledove

  The nomad chieftain frowned a moment; as was often true, Viridovix’ brogue thickened in times of stress. But when he understood, the Khamorth laughed and spread his empty hands. “Nothing at all.”

  Oddly, Viridovix believed him. He was sure any of the other five would have delighted in the killing, but not this man. “What is it you want o’ me, then?” the Celt asked, not reassured.

  The answer, though, was mild enough. “For now, let me wash your head, so your cuts do not fester.” Varatesh poured some kavass onto a scrap of wool, then knelt by Viridovix. The Celt winced when the stinging stuff touched his cut and swollen scalp, but the nomad daubed away as gently as Gorgidas might have done. “I am called Varatesh, by the way,” he remarked.

  “I’d be lying if I said I was pleased to make your acquaintance,” the Gaul told him. Varatesh smiled and nodded, quite kindly—or so it would have seemed had Viridovix not been his prisoner.

  The nomad’s body screened him from one of the archers. As if his weight were too much for him, Viridovix slumped against Varatesh’s shoulder—and then grappled for the longsword at the plainsman’s belt. Only then did he realize how hurt and fuddled he was; Varatesh twisted away and bounced to his feet before the Celt’s move was well begun.

  The nomad shouted for his bowmen not to fire. He looked down at Viridovix, and there was no kindness on his handsome face now. With chilling deliberation, he kicked the Gaul in the point of the elbow. “Play no games with me,” he said, still quiet-voiced.

  Viridovix barely heard; sheets of red and black fire were passing in front of his eyes. The pain in his head, anguish a moment before, receded to a dull, all but friendly ache. Varatesh might not slaughter for the sport of it, but that only made his torments worse when they came.

  “I doubt whether Avshar cares what shape you are in when he meets you,” the Khamorth said. He paused, waiting to see how Viridovix met the name.

  “Och, be damned to you and him both,” the Gaul said, trying not to show the chill he felt. He blustered, “My comrades’ll be catching up with you long before you can bring me to him.” He had no idea how true that was; but if Varatesh had let them live, he might as well worry about them.

  One of the other nomads laughed. “Hush, Kubad,” Varatesh said, then turned back to Viridovix. “They’re welcome to try,” he went on placidly. “In fact, I wish them luck.”

  When the Celt could stand, his captors put him on one of their remounts. They took no chances on his escape, tying his feet under the horse and his hands behind him; the plainsman called Kubad guided his mount on a lead. Trying to gain more freedom of any sort, he protested, “At least be letting me have hold of the reins. What if I slip off?” He meant it; he felt anything but well.

  Kubad had enough Videssian to answer him. “Then you drag.” Viridovix gave up.

  As the nomads rode north over the plains, the Gaul began to see that, by comparison, his own party had been lazing along. The steppe ponies trotted on and on, tireless as if driven by some clockwork. Despite the wide detour the plainsmen took round the herds of some clan, they covered nearly as much ground in one day as Viridovix was used to doing in two.

  The only stops they made were to answer nature’s calls; Viridovix found it hard to relieve himself with an arrow aimed at his midriff. The Khamorth ate in the saddle, gnawing on barklike sun-dried strips of beef and lamb. They did not pause to feed their prisoner, but halfway through the day Varatesh, courteous as if he’d never killed a man, held a flask of kavass to Viridovix’ lips. He drank, both from thirst and in an effort to dull the pounding hurt in his head. The fermented milk did not help much.

  Dirty-gray clouds like the underbellies of so many sheep came scudding up out of the south as the afternoon wore to a close. Kubad said something in his own language to Varatesh, who bobbed his head as if acknowledging a compliment. The wind grew brisker and began to feel damp.

  The Khamorth leader picked a small creek with an overhanging bank as a campsite. “Rain tonight,” he told Viridovix, “but we sleep dry here—unless the stream rises. I do not think it will.”

  “And what if it does?” The Gaul, hurt and also exhausted from staying in the saddle without being able to use his hands, did not really care, but tried to discommode Varatesh in any small way he could.

  He failed. “Then we move,” the nomad answered, busying himself with the fire. It was tiny and smokeless, not one to advertise their presence. This time the Khamorth shared their travelers’ fare with Viridovix, untying him so he could eat, but always watching him so closely he could do nothing more. When he was through Varatesh bound him once more, testing each knot so carefully that the Gaul hated him for his thoroughness.

  The plainsmen drew straw for their watches; Viridovix gathered himself to do something—he knew not what—as soon as he saw the chance. But his body betrayed him. Despite the misery in his head, despite the discomfort of having his arms tied behind his back, he yielded to sleep almost at once.

  The gentle plashing of rain in the rivulet a few feet away woke him some hours later; Denizli, who had drawn third watch, was on sentry go. Varatesh had chosen his campsite perfectly. The projecting streambank left it snug and dry, just as he had said. Actually, the Celt had not doubted him; even in his cruelty, the outlaw chief was competent.

  Viridovix rolled out toward the rain. Denizli growled something threatening in his own tongue and hefted his bow. “Sure and I just want to soak my puir battered noddle,” the Celt said, but Denizli only grunted and lifted the bow a couple of inches further.

  Swearing at his luck, Viridovix perforce drew back. “Arse-licking eunuch,” he said. He knew he was gambling, but beyond grunting again Denizli did not respond. Here, at least, was one nomad who had no Videssian. The Gaul cursed him for several minutes, a profane stew of the imperial tongue, Latin, and Celtic. Feelings slightly eased, he tried to find some tolerable position in which to go back to sleep. The rain, he thought, looked to be lasting a while.

  Gorgidas stirred and grumbled as a raindrop splashed against his cheek. Another coldly kissed his ear, a third spattered off his left eyelid. He scrabbled at his bedroll, trying to pull it over his head without really rousing. Before he could, half a dozen more drops landed on his face, leaving him irretrievably awake. “By the dog,” he muttered in Greek, an oath of annoyance. The weather had seemed good enough when he fell asleep.

  He winced as he sat, for his head gave a savage twinge. He wished for raw cabbage to deal with his hangover, but wondered what he had done to deserve one. Kavass was potent, aye, but the little he’d had at the evening meal should not have left him as crapulent as this.

  Others were waking, too, and groaning and cursing in such a way that the Greek guessed they felt no better than he. Only when he began to look around did he notice the campfire had gone out. He frowned. The ground, as yet, was barely damp—why were only ashes left of the good-sized blaze they’d set not long before?

  Agathias Psoes had the same thought. “What’s wrong with you sheeps’ heads?” he shouted to his troopers. “Can’t you even keep a bloody fire going?” Their replies were mumbles; the evidence of their failure was only too plain.

  “How many Khamorth does it take to start a fire?” Arigh asked rhetorically, and then answered his own question: “Ten—one gathers the brushwood while the other nine try to figure out what to do next.”

  “Heh, heh.” Psoes barked a short fragment of laugh, enough for politeness’ sake. Though he was not of Khamorth blood himself, most of his squad was, and he naturally took their part when an outsider taunted them.

  Pikridios Goudeles, on the other hand, found the Arshaum’s gibe funny, chuckling quietly for nearly a minute. Gorgidas allowed himself a wry smile; Arigh took every chance, it seemed, to twit his people’s eastern neighbors on the steppe.

  It was then that Gorgidas realized Viridovix’ booming laugh had failed to ring out at his friend’s joke. Was the accursed Gaul still sleeping? Gorgidas peered through the da
rkness and the raindrops, which were coming thicker now. He could not see the Celt. “Viridovix?” he called.

  There was no answer. He called again, with equal lack of success. “Probably gone off somewhere to drop his trousers,” Lankinos Skylitzes guessed.

  Gorgidas heard footsteps squelching toward the camp and thought for a moment Skylitzes was right. But it was one of the sentries. “Hallo the camp!” the trooper said. “Are you daft there, to let your fire die? Keep talking, the lot of you, so I can find you.”

  When the sentry came in, he asked, “Is everything well? I had something odd happen to me.” He spoke with elaborate unconcern, trying to mask his worry. “I was out there watching and started to feel faint. I headed in to get a relief, but I reckon I didn’t make it—next thing I knew, it was raining on me. Very strange—seems like there’s a smith pounding out stirrups in my head, but I drank water because I knew I had to be sober for watch. What hour is it, anyway?”

  As it turned out, no one knew. Nor did they argue about it long, for just then one of the horses gave a puzzled-sounding snort and scrambled to its feet, followed within minutes by the rest of the animals. Ignoring their own headaches, Psoes’ men and Skylitzes rushed over to them, shouting in mixed Videssian and the Khamorth tongue. For the first time, Gorgidas understood something was truly amiss; horses did not go down of their own accord.

  The horsemen clucked and fussed over their beasts, trying to learn why they had fallen. Lankinos Skylitzes walked back toward the dead campfire. “Gorgidas?”

  “Here.”

  “Where? Oh.” The soldier almost stumbled over him. “Sorry—bloody dark.” Skylitzes’ voice softened. “I’ve heard you are a healer. Would you see to the horses? They seem all right, but—” He spread his hands, a motion the Greek saw only dimly.

  Gorgidas understood the request, but it did not please him. “I’m a physician no more,” he said shortly. That was too abrupt, he decided, so he went on, “Even if I were, I know nothing of animals. Horseleeching is a different art from doctoring men.” And a good deal lower one, he did not add.

  Skylitzes caught his annoyance nonetheless. “I meant no offense.” Gorgidas dipped his head impatiently, then regretted it as his headache flared. Skylitzes asked, “Has Viridovix turned up?”

  “No. Where could he have wandered off to, anyhow? Where did he lay out his sleeping-mat? If he’s on it snoring, I’ll wring his lazy neck.”

  “You’d need to wait your turn, I think.” Skylitzes squinted as he peered through the rain. He pointed. “Over there, wasn’t it?”

  “Was it?” Gorgidas took himself to task for not paying closer heed before he slept; if a historian—or a doctor, for that matter—failed to notice details, what good was he? He was proud of his powers of observation, and here, when he needed them, they let him down.

  Skirting the ashes of the campfire—and still wondering why they were so cold—the Greek walked in the direction Skylitzes had indicated. Sure enough, there were blankets and a thin traveling mat spread on the ground; they were beginning to get soaked now. Beside them was a knapsack Gorgidas recognized as Viridovix’ and the Celt’s helmet with its seven-spoked bronze wheel of a crest. Of Viridovix himself there was no sign.

  The commotion in the camp made the two remaining sentries come in to see what was toward; both reluctantly admitted falling asleep at their posts. “Trouble yourselves not,” Pikridios Goudeles said pompously, “for no harm resulted.”

  Agathias Psoes growled, as any good underofficer would at the notion of his men dozing on watch. And Gorgidas shouted, “No harm? Where’s Viridovix?”

  “To that I must confess my ignorance. The man is your comrade, and of your people. Why should he choose to wander off?”

  Gorgidas opened his mouth, shut it again; he had no idea. He did know how useless it was to explain that he and the Celt were no more of the same people than Goudeles and a Khamorth.

  The rest of the night was dank and miserable. No one went back to sleep, and not just the pattering rain stopped them. The entire party was much more awake than their midnight rousing called for, but unpleasantly so; a good part of the desultory talk centered on their aching heads.

  “Been drunk without a hangover before,” Arigh remarked, “but I never had the hangover without the drunk.” As if to correct the fault, he swigged from the kavass-skin that was almost always near him.

  Toward morning the clouds grew tattered for a while, revealing a thin cheese-paring of a moon low in the east. Too thin, too low—“We’ve lost a day!” Gorgidas exclaimed.

  “Phos, you’re right,” Skylitzes said, making his god’s circular sun-sign over his breast. He raised his hands to the damp heavens and muttered a prayer. Nor was he the only one; Psoes and the Videssians in his squad imitated him, while the troopers who still followed Khamorth ways poured kavass out on the ground to propitiate the less abstract powers they worshiped. Even Goudeles, as worldly a man as Videssos grew, prayed with the soldiers.

  “Some spirit has touched us. We should sacrifice a horse,” Arigh said, and the Khamorth cried out in agreement.

  Gorgidas listened to his companions with growing exasperation. While they babbled of gods and spirits, his logical mind saw the answer only too clearly. “We’ve been magicked asleep so someone could snatch Viridovix,” he said, and, a moment later, carrying his train of thought to its conclusion, added, “Avshar!”

  “No,” Skylitzes replied at once. “Were it Avshar, we should be waking in the next world. There is no mercy in him.”

  “His minions, then,” the Greek insisted. He remembered the potent blade the Gaul carried, but did not mention it; the fewer who knew of it, the less likely word of it would reach the wizard, should Gorgidas prove wrong by some lucky chance.

  He did not think he was. It was growing steadily lighter; he walked over to examine Viridovix’ bedroll once more. His breath hissed out as he saw the bloodstains on the Celt’s blankets. He held them up, displaying them to the rest of the party. “A kidnapping while we were spelled to sleep!” he said.

  “And even so, what of that?” Goudeles said. The seal-stamper sounded petulant; he was used to the comforts of Videssos and did not relish sitting unprotected in the rain and mud of the trackless steppe. He went on, “When weighed against the mission with which we were entrusted, what is the fate of one barbarian mercenary? Once our embassy is successfully completed—which boon Phos grant—then, with the augmentation of manpower the addition of the Arshaum will yield us, we may properly search for him. But until such augmentation should come to pass, he remains a secondary consideration.”

  Gorgidas gasped, not wanting to believe his ears. “But he may be hurt, dying—he surely is hurt,” the Greek said, touching the brown stains on the cloth. “You would not leave him in the enemy’s hands?”

  If Goudeles was embarrassed, he did not show it. “I would not cast myself into them, either, and bring to nothing the purpose for which I was dispatched.”

  “The pen-pusher is right,” Skylitzes said, looking as though the admission left a bad taste in his mouth. “The Empire’s safety overrides that of any one man. Your countryman is a doughty fighter, but he is only one. We need hundreds.”

  Neither of the Videssians knew Viridovix, save on the journey. Gorgidas turned to Arigh, who had roistered with the Celt for two years. “He is your friend!”

  Arigh tugged at his straggling chin whiskers, plainly uncomfortable with the Greek’s bald appeal. Personal ties counted for more with him than with the imperials, but he was a khagan’s son and understood reasons of state. “It grieves me, but no. The farmer-folk speak true, I fear. I betray a trust now whatever I do, but I act for my clan before I act for myself. V’ridrish is no easy prey; he may yet win free.”

  “Curse you all!” Gorgidas said. “If you care nothing for what happens to your comrade, stand aside for one who does. I’ll ride after him myself.”

  “That is well said,” Arigh said quietly. Several of the troop
ers echoed him. Furious, Gorgidas ignored them all, sweeping possessions into his rucksack.

  But Skylitzes came over to put a hand on the Greek’s shoulder. Gorgidas cursed again and tried to shake free, but the stocky Videssian officer was stronger than he. “Let loose of me, you god-detested oaf! Why should you care if I seek my friend? I cannot matter to you any more than he does.”

  “Think like a man, not an angry child,” Skylitzes said softly. The rebuke was calculated to touch the Greek, who prided himself on his rationality. Skylitzes waved, an all-encompassing gesture that swept round the horizon. “Go after Viridovix—” Like Goudeles, he said the name carefully. “—if you will, but where will you go?”

  “Why—” the Greek began, and then stopped in confusion. He rubbed his bristly chin; a beard, he was finding, could be a useful adjunct to thought. “Where do your reports place Avshar?” he asked at last.

  “North and west of where we are now, but that news is weeks old and worth nothing now. You’ve seen how the plainsmen move, and no law makes the damned wizard-prince stay with any one clan.”

  “Northwest is good enough.”

  “Is it? I’ve seen you, outlander; you lack the skill to follow a trail—not that the rain will leave you one.” Skylitzes went on remorselessly, “And if you do somehow catch up to your foes, what then? Are you warrior enough to slay them all singlehanded? Are you warrior enough even to protect yourself if a nomad chooses to make sport of you? Will that sword of yours help, should you buckle it on instead of leaving it in your kit?”

  Gorgidas started; sure enough, he had not thought of the gladius Gaius Philippus had given him, and had left it tucked away with his scrolls of parchment. For the first time in many years, he wished he were skilled with weapons. It was humiliating that he could not stop some chance-met, unwashed, illiterate barbarian who might enjoy killing him simply to watch him die.

  He rummaged through his sack for the sword, but threw it angrily back in when he found it. It could not cut Lankinos Skylitzes’ logic. “West, then,” he said, hating the necessity that impelled his words. Ananke, he thought: life’s harshest master.