Videssos Cycle, Volume 1 (46 page)

Sweat already beginning to make his shoulders raw under his cuirass, Scaurus led his Romans to their place in the Videssian line. They anchored the left flank of Mavrikios’ strong center; to their own left was the cavalry contingent from Khatrish, which linked the center to Ortaias Sphrantzes’ left wing.

The Khatrisher commander, a slim, pockmarked man named Laon
Pakhymer, waved when he saw the tribune. Marcus waved back. Ever since his first encounter with Taso Vones, he had liked the Khatrishers. He also preferred them on his flank to their Khamorth cousins. Some of the men from the plains of Pardraya were in a sullen mood, and Scaurus could scarcely blame them after their allies had shot at them by mistake.

Viridovix looked out over the barren plain toward the gathering enemy. He scratched his nose. His fair skin suffered under the fierce Videssian sun, burning and peeling without ever really tanning. “Not much like the last shindy the two of us were in, is it now?” he said to Marcus.

“It isn’t, is it? Morning instead of night, hot instead of mild, this naked rockpile instead of your Gallic forest … why, we’re even on the same side now.”

“So we are.” Viridovix chuckled. “I hadna thought of that. It should be a fine brawl all the same.” Scaurus snorted.

Pipes whistled and drums thumped, ordering the imperial forces forward. The Romans did without such fripperies, except for their rallying horncalls, but the tribune was rather glad of the martial music surrounding his men. It made him feel less alone, less as if all the Yezda ahead were marking him as their target.

The invaders were advancing too, not in the neat articulated units of the Videssian army, but now here, now there, like a wave up an uneven beach. It was easy to recognize Avshar, even at the distance between the two forces. He chose to lead his host from the right rather than from the center like Mavrikios. His white robes flashed brightly against the sooty coat of the huge stallion he rode. Yezd’s banner flapped lazily above his head.

“That is an evil color for a standard,” Quintus Glabrio said. “It reminds me of a bandage soaked with clotted blood.” The image was fitting, but surprising when it came from the Roman officer. It sounded more like something Gorgidas would say.

Gaius Philippus said, “It suits them, for they’ve caused enough to be soaked.”

The two forces were about half a mile apart when Mavrikios rode his own roan charger out ahead of his men to address them. Turning his head left and right, Marcus saw Ortaias Sphrantzes and Thorisin doing
the same in their divisions of the army. The Yezda, too, came to a halt while Avshar and their other chieftains harangued them.

The Emperor’s speech was short and to the point. He reminded his men of the harm Yezd had inflicted on Videssos, told them their god was fighting on their side—the tribune was willing to bet Avshar was making the same claim to his warriors—and briefly outlined the tactics he had planned.

The tribune did not pay much attention to Mavrikios’ words—their draft was plain after five or six sentences. More interesting were the snatches of Ortaias Sphrantzes’ address that a fitful southerly breeze brought him.

In his thin tenor, the noble was doing his best to encourage his men with the same kind of sententious rhetoric he had used inside the Videssian camp the night before. “Fight with every limb; let no limb have no share of danger! The campaign of Yezd has justice opposed to it, for peace is a loathsome thing to them, and their love of battle is such that it honors a god of blood. Injustice is often strong, but it is also changed to ruin. I will direct the battle, and in my eagerness for combat engage the aid of all—I am ashamed to suffer not suffering …”

On and on he went. Marcus lost the thread of Sphrantzes’ speech when Mavrikios finished his own and the men of the center cheered, but when their shouts subsided Ortaias was still holding forth. The soldiers on the left listened glumly, shifting from foot to foot and muttering among themselves. What they expected and needed was a heartening fierce speech, not this grandiloquent monologue.

The Sevastos’ nephew built to his rousing conclusion. “Let no one who loves luxury’s pleasures share in the rites of war and let no one join in the battle for the sake of loot. It is the lover of danger who should seek the space between the two armies. Come now, let us at last add deeds to words and let us shift our theory into the line of battle!”

He paused expectantly, waiting for the applause the two Gavrai had already received. There were a few spatters of clapping and one or two shouts, but nothing more. “He does have the brain of a pea,” Gaius Philippus grumbled. “Imagine telling a mercenary army not to loot! I’m surprised he didn’t tell them not to drink and fornicate, while he was at it.”

Dejectedly, Sphrantzes rode back into line. Nephon Khoumnos was
there to slap his armored back and try to console him—and also, Marcus knew, to protect the army from his flights of fancy.

It would not be long now. All speeches done at last, both armies were advancing again, and the forwardmost riders were already exchanging arrows. Scaurus felt a familiar tightening in his guts, suppressed it automatically. These moments just before fighting began were the worst. Once in the middle of it, there was no time to be afraid.

The Yezda came on at a trot. Marcus saw the sun flash off helmets, drawn swords, and lanceheads, saw their banners and horse-tail standards lifted high. Then he blinked and rubbed his eyes; around him, Romans cried out in amazement and alarm. The oncoming line was flickering like a candle flame in a breeze, now plain, now half-seen as if through fog, now vanished altogether. The tribune clutched his sword until knuckles whitened, but the grip brought no security. How was he to strike foes he could not see?

Though it seemed an eternity, the Yezda could not have remained out of sight more than a few heartbeats. Through the outcry of his own men, Scaurus heard counterspells shouted by the sorcerers who accompanied the imperial army. The enemy reappeared, sharp and solid as if they had never blurred away.

“Battle magic,” the tribune said shakily.

“So it was,” Gaius Philippus agreed. “It didn’t work, though, the gods be thanked.” He spoke absently, without turning to look at Scaurus. His attention was all on the Yezda, who, their ploy failed, were riding harder now, bearing down on the Videssians. “Shields up!” the centurion shouted, as arrows arced their way toward the Romans.

Marcus had never stood up under arrow fire like this. An arrow buzzed angrily past his ear; another struck his
scutum
hard enough to drive him back a pace. The noise the shafts made as they hissed in and struck shields and corselets was like rain beating on a metal roof. Rain, though, never left men shrieking and writhing when it touched their soft, vulnerable flesh.

The Yezda thundered forward, close enough for the tribune to see their intent faces as they guided their horses toward the gaps their arrows had made.
“Pila!”
he shouted, and, a moment later, “Loose!”

Men pitched from saddles, to spin briefly through the air or be
dragged to red death behind their mounts. So stirrups had drawbacks after all, Scaurus thought. Horses fell too, or ran wild when bereft of riders. They fouled those next to them and sent them crashing to the ground. Warriors behind the first wave, unable to stop their animals in time, tripped over the fallen or desperately pulled back on their reins to leap the sudden barrier ahead—and presented themselves as targets for their foes.

The Roman volley shook the terrifying momentum of the Yezda charge, but did not, could not, stop it altogether. Yelling like men possessed, the nomads collided with the soldiers who would bar their way. A bushy-bearded warrior slashed down at the tribune from horseback. He took the blow on his shield while he cut at the nomad’s leg, laying open his thigh and wounding his horse as well.

Rider and beast cried out in pain together. The luckless animal reared, blood dripping down its barrel. An arrow thudded into its belly. It slewed sideways and fell, pinning its rider beneath it. The saber bounced from his loosening grip as he struck.

A few hundred yards to his right, Marcus heard deep-voiced cries as the Namdaleni hurled themselves forward at the Yezda before them. They worked a fearful slaughter for a short time, striking with swords and lances and bowling the enemy over with the sheer weight of their charge. Like snapping wolves against a bear, the nomads gave way before them, but even in retreat their deadly archery took its toll.

Again the Yezda tried to rush the Romans, and again the legionaries’ well-disciplined volley of throwing spears broke the charge before it could smash them. “I wish we had more heavy spearmen,” Gaius Philippus panted. “There’d be nothing like a line of
hastati
to keep these buggers off of us.” The
hasta
, though, was becoming obsolete in Rome’s armies, and few were the legionaries trained in its use.

“Wish for the moon, while you’re at it,” Marcus said, putting to flight a nomad who, fallen from horse, chose to fight on foot. The Yezda scuttled away before the tribune could finish him.

Viridovix, as always an army in himself, leaped out from the Roman line and, sidestepping an invader’s hacking sword-stroke, cut off the head of the nomad’s horse with a single slash of his great blade. The Romans cried out in triumph, the Yezda in dismay, at the mighty blow.

The rider threw himself clear as his beast foundered, but the tall Celt
was on him like a cat after a lizard. Against Viridovix’s reach and strength he could do nothing, and his own head spun from his shoulders an instant later. Snatching up the gory trophy, the Gaul returned to the Roman ranks.

“I know it’s not your custom to be taking heads,” he told Scaurus, “but a fine reminder he’ll be of the fight.”

“You can have him for breakfast, for all I care,” the tribune shouted back. His usual equanimity frayed badly in the stress of battle.

The legionaries’ unyielding defense and the exploit of the Celt, as savage as any of their own, dissuaded the Yezda from further direct assaults. Instead, they drew back out of spear-range and plied the Romans with arrows. Marcus would have liked nothing better than to let his men charge the nomads, but he had already seen what happened when a Vaspurakaner company, similarly assailed, ran pell-mell at the Yezda. They were cut off and cut to pieces in the twinkling of an eye.

Still, there was no reason for the Romans to endure such punishment without striking back. Scaurus sent a runner over to Laon Pakhymer. The Khatrisher acknowledged his request with a flourish of his helmet over his head. He sent a couple of squadrons of his countrymen forward, just enough to drive the Yezda out of bowshot. As the nomads retreated, Marcus moved his own line up to help cover the allies who had protected him.

He wondered how the fight was going. His own little piece of it was doing fairly well, but this was too big a battle to see all at once. The numbers on both sides, the length of the battle line, and the ever-present smothering dust made that hopeless.

But by the way the front was bending, Mavrikios’ plan seemed to be working. The Yezda, squeezed on both flanks, were being forced to hurl themselves at the Videssian line’s center. Deprived of the mobility that gave them their advantage, they were easy meat for the heavy troops the Emperor had concentrated there. The great axes of his Haloga guardsmen rose and fell, rose and fell, shearing through the nomads’ light small shields and boiled-leather cuirasses. The northerners sang as they fought, their slow, deep battle chant sounding steadily through the clamor around them.

Avshar growled, deep in his throat, a sound of thwarted fury. The Videssian center was even stronger than he had expected, though he had known it held his foes’ best troops. And among them, he suddenly recalled, was the outlander who had bested him at swords. He seldom lost at anything; revenge would be sweet.

Three times he fired his deadly bow at Scaurus. Twice he missed; despite terrified rumor, the weapon was not infallible. His third shot was true, but a luckless nomad rode into the arrow’s path. He fell, never knowing his own chieftain had slain him.

The wizard cursed to see that perfect shot ruined. “A different way, then,” he rumbled to himself. He had intended to use the spell against another, but it would serve here as well.

He handed his bow to an officer by his side, calmed his horse with his knees till it stood still—the spell required passes with both hands at once. As he began to chant, even the Yezda holding the bow flinched from him, so frigid and terrible were his words.

Marcus’ sword flared dazzlingly bright for an instant. It chilled him, but many magics were loose on the field today. He waved to the buccinators to call a lagging maniple into position.

Avshar cursed again, feeling his sorcery deflected. His fists clenched, but even he had to bow to necessity—back to the first plan, then. Yezda scouts had watched the imperial host drill a score of times and brought him word of what they had seen. Of all the men in that host, one was the key—and Avshar’s spell would not go awry twice.