Harry Turtledove - Krispos of Videssos

Krispos dug his roweled heels into Progress' flanks. The big bay gelding squealed in pain and fury and bounded ahead. The Halogai, though, were waiting for Krispos. One big man after another grabbed at Progress' reins, at his bridle, at the rest of his trappings. "Let me through, curse you!" Krispos raged.

"No, Majesty, no," the northerners yelled back. "We will settle the rebel for you."

Petronas and his companions were very close now. He had no Haloga guards, but the men who rode with him had to be his closest retainers, the bravest and most loyal of his host. Sabers upraised and gleaming, lances poised and ready, they crashed into the ranks of the imperial bodyguards.

For all the tales he had heard, Krispos had never actually seen the Halogai fight before. Their first couple of ranks simply went down, bowled over by their foes' horses or speared before they were close enough to swing their axes. But Petronas' men fell, too; their chain mail might have been linen for all it did to keep those great axes from their flesh. Their horses, which wore no armor, suffered worse. The axes abbatoir workers used to slaughter beeves were shorter, lighter, and less keen than the ones in the northerners' strong hands. One well-placed blow dropped any horse in its tracks; another usually sufficed for its rider.

A barricade of flesh, some dead, some writhing, quickly formed between Krispos' men and Petronas'. The Halogai hacked over it. Petronas' mounted men kept trying to bull their way through. The ranks of the guardsmen thinned. Krispos found himself ever closer to the fighting front. Now the Halogai, battling for survival themselves, could not keep him away.

And there was Petronas! Red smeared his saber; no one had told him he was too precious to risk. Krispos spurred Progress toward him. With warrior's instinct, Petronas' head whipped round. He snarled at Krispos, blocked his cut, and returned one that clattered off Krispos' helmet.

They cursed each other, the same words in both their mouths. "Thief! Bandit! Bastard! Robber! Whoreson!"

More Halogai still stood than Petronas' companions. Shouting Krispos' name, they surged toward the rebel. Petronas was too old a soldier to stay and be slaughtered. Along with those of his guards who yet lived, he pulled back, pausing only to shake his fist one last time at Krispos. Krispos answered with a two-fingered gesture he'd learned on the streets of Videssos the city.

The center had held. Krispos looked round to see how the rest of the battle was doing. It still hung in the balance. His own line sagged a little on the left, Petronas' on the right. Neither commander had enough troops to pull some out of line and exploit his small advantage without the risk of giving his foe a bigger one. And so men hacked and thrust and hit and swore and bled, all to keep matters exactly as they had been before the battle started.

That tore at Krispos. To his way of thinking, if war had any purpose whatsoever, it was to make change quick and decisive. Such suffering with nothing to show for it seemed a cruel waste.

But when he said as much to Mammianos, the general shook his head. "Petronas has to go through you before he can move on the capital. A drawn fight gains him nothing. This is the first real test of fighting skill and loyalty for your men. A draw for you is near as good as a win, because you show the Empire you match him in those things. Given that, and given that you hold Videssos the city, I like your chances pretty well."

Reluctantly Krispos nodded. Mammianos' cool good sense was something he tried to cultivate in himself. Applying it to this wholesale production of human agony before him, though, took more self-possession than he could easily find.

He started to tell that to Mammianos, but Mammianos was not listening. Like a farmer who scents a change in the wind at harvesttime and fears for his crop, the general peered to the left. "Something's happened there," he said, certainty in his voice. Krispos also stared leftward. He needed longer than Mammianos to recognize a new clumping of men at the wing, to hear the new shouts of alarm and fury and, a moment later, triumph. The sweat that dripped from the end of his nose suddenly went cold. "Someone's turned traitor."

"Aye." Mammianos packed a world of meaning into a single word. He bellowed for a courier and started a series of frantic orders to plug the gap. Then he broke off and looked again. As if against his will, a grin of disbelief stretched itself over his fat face. "By the good god," he said softly. "It's one of theirs, going over to us."

Since he felt it himself, Krispos understood Mammianos' surprise. He'd feared the reliability of his own troops, not Petronas'. But sure enough, a sizable section—more than a company, perhaps as much as a regiment—of Petronas' army was now shouting "Krispos!"

And the defectors did more than shout. They turned on the men to their immediate right, the men who held the rightmost position in Petronas' line. Beset by them as well as by Krispos' own supporters, the flank guards broke and fled in wild confusion.

Mammianos' amazement did not paralyze him for long. Though he'd done nothing to force the break in Petronas' line, he knew how to exploit it once it was there. He sent the left wing of Krispos' army around Petronas' shattered right, seeking to roll up the whole rebel army.

But Petronas also knew his business. He did not try to salvage a battle already lost. Instead, he dropped a thin line back from the stump of his army's broken right wing, preventing Krispos' men from surrounding too many more of his own. His forces gave ground all along their line now, but nowhere except on the far right did they yield to panic. They were beaten, but remained an army. Breaking off combat a little at a time, they retreated west toward Resaina. Krispos wanted to press the pursuit hard, but still did not feel sure enough of himself as battlefield commander to override Mammianos, who kept the army under tight control. The bulk of Petronas' troops escaped to the camp they had occupied before they came out to fight, leaving Krispos' men in possession of the field.

Healer-priests went from man to wounded man, first at a run, then at a walk, and finally at a drunken shamble as the exhaustion of their trade took its toll on them. More mundane leeches, men who worked without the aid of magic, saw to soldiers with minor wounds, here sewing up a cut, there splashing an astringent lotion onto flesh lacerated when chain mail was driven through padding and leather undertunic alike.

And Krispos, surrounded not only by the surviving Halogai of the imperial guard but also by most of Sarkis' cavalry regiment, approached the troopers whose defection had cost Petronas the fight. He and all his men stayed ready for anything; Petronas was devious enough to throw away a battle to set up an assassination.

The leader of the units that had changed sides saw Krispos coming. He rode toward him. Krispos had the odd feeling he'd seen the fellow before, though he was sure he had not. The middle-age officer, plainly a noble, was short and slim, with a narrow face, a thin arched nose, and a neat beard the color of his iron helmet. He set his right fist over his heart in salute to Krispos. "Your Majesty," he said. His voice was a resonant tenor.

"My thanks for your aid there, excellent sir," Krispos said. He wondered how big a reward the officer would want for it. "I fear I don't know your name."

"I am Rhisoulphos," the fellow said, as if Krispos ought to know who Rhisoulphos was.

After a moment, he did. "You're Dara's father," he blurted. No wonder the man looked familiar! "Your daughter takes after you, excellent sir."

"So I've been told." Rhisoulphos let out a short bark of laughter. "I daresay she wears the face better than I do, though."