Harry Turtledove - Krispos of Videssos

The noise the boulders made as they crashed into the Videssian cavalrymen was the noise that might have come from a smithy in the instant a giant stepped on it. Horses went down as if scythed, pitching riders off their backs. The beasts behind them could not stop fast enough and crashed into them and into the stones. That only made the chaos worse.

The men and horses of the very foremost ranks were almost upon the breastwork when the avalanche began. Soldiers turned their heads to gape at what had happened to their comrades. Some drew rein in consternation; other pressed on toward the barricade. Now the Halogai, howling with ferocious glee, swarmed over it to meet them. The imperials at the head of the charge fought back desperately. No one could come to their aid through the writhing tangle behind them.

Krispos watched and cursed and slammed a fist against his thigh as Harvas' northerners overwhelmed his men one by one.

Harvas raised his arms and pointed again. More boulders sprang from their proper places and crashed down on the Videssian army's van.

"Make them stop!" Krispos screamed to Trokoundos.

"I wish I could." The wizard's face was haggard, his eyes wild. "He shouldn't be able to do this. The stress, the excitement of combat weaken magic's grip, even if the sorceries are readied in advance. I've tried counterspells—they go awry, as they should."

"What can we do, then?"

"Majesty, I have not the power to stand against Harvas, not even with my colleagues here." Trokoundos sounded as if admitting that cost him physical pain. "Perhaps with more mages, masters from the Sorcerers' Collegium, he may yet be defeated."

"But not now," Krispos said.

"No, Majesty, not now. He screened his encamped army so I could not detect it, he works battle magic so strong and unexpected that it almost broke me when he unleashed it ... Majesty, a good many years have passed since I owned myself daunted by any sorcerer, but today Harvas daunts me."

Ahead at the barricade, almost all the Videssians were down. They and the crushed soldiers behind them blocked the army's way forward. Krispos' glance slid to the slopes of the pass. Who could guess how many more boulders needed only Harvas' sorcerous command to smash into the imperials, or what other magics Harvas had waiting?

"We retreat," Krispos said, tasting gall.

"Good for you, your Majesty," Mammianos said. Startled, Krispos turned in the saddle to stare at him. "Good for you," the fat general repeated. "Knowing when to cut your losses is a big part of this business. I feared you'd order us to press on regardless, and turn a defeat into a disaster."

"It's already a disaster," Krispos said.

Even as the call to retreat rang mournfully through the pass, Mammianos shook his head. "No, Majesty. We're still in decent order, there's no panic, and the men will be ready to fight another day—well, maybe another season. But if that he-witch ahead does much more to us, they'll turn tail every time they see his ruffians, whether he's with 'em or not."

Cold comfort, but better—a bit better—than none. Krispos' own Halogai closed around him as rearguard while the army withdrew from the pass. If the northerners wanted to slay him and go over to their countrymen, they would never have a better chance. The imperial guardsmen looked back only to shake fists at Videssos' foes.

And yet, in a way, the guards were the least of Krispos' worries. His eyes, like those of so many others with him, kept sliding up the sides of the pass while he wondered whether more great stones would smash men and horses to jelly. If Harvas had time to ready stones through the whole length of the pass, disaster great enough to satisfy even Mammianos' criteria might yet befall the army.

Somehow, retreat did not become rout. The boulders on the slopes held their places. At last those slopes grew lower and farther apart as the pass opened out into the country below the mountains. "Back to our old campsite?" Mammianos asked.

"Why not?" Krispos said bitterly. "That way we can pretend today never happened—those of us who are still alive, at any rate."

Mammianos tried to console him. "We can't do these little tricks without losses."

"Seems we can't even do them with losses," Krispos said, to which the general only grunted by way of reply.

Any camp is joyless after a defeat. Wounded men scream round winners' tents, too, but they and their comrades who come through whole know they have accomplished what they set out to do. Losers enjoy no such consolation. Not only have they suffered, they have suffered and failed.

Failure, Krispos remembered, made Petronas' army break up. He ordered stronger sentry detachments posted south of the camp than to the north. The officers to whom he gave the command did not remark on it, but nodded knowingly as they saw to carrying it out.

Krispos walked to the outskirts of the camp, where badly wounded men lay waiting for healer-priests to attend to them. The soldiers not too far gone in their own anguish saluted him and tried to smile, which made him feel worse than he had before. But he made sure he saw all of them and spoke to as many as he could before he went back to his own tent.

Darkness had fallen by then. Krispos wanted nothing more than to sleep, to forget about the day's misfortunes, if only for a few hours. But a duty harder even than visiting the wounded lay ahead of him. He'd kept putting off writing to Tanilis of Mavros' death; he'd hoped to be able to say he had avenged it. Now that hope had vanished—and how much, in any case, would it have mattered to her? Her only son was gone. Krispos inked his pen and sat staring at the blank parchment in front of him. How to begin?

"Krispos Avtokrator of the Videssians to the excellent and noble lady Tanilis: Greetings." Thus far formula took him, but no farther. He needed the smooth phrases that came naturally to anyone who had the rhetorical training that went with a proper education. He did not have them, and would not entrust this letter to a secretary.

"Majesty?" Geirrod's deep voice came from outside the tent.

"What is it?" Krispos put down the pen with a strange mixture of relief and guilt.

The guardsman's reply warned him he had known relief too soon. "A matter of honor, Majesty."

The last Haloga to speak of honor in that tone of voice had been Vagn, talking about killing himself. Krispos ducked out through the tent flap in a hurry. "What's touched your honor, Geirrod?" he asked.

"Not my honor alone, your Majesty, but the honor of all my folk who take your gold," Geirrod said. Krispos was tall for a Videssian. He still had to look up at Geirrod as the stern northerner went on, "I am chosen to stand for all of us, since I was first to bow before you as lord."

"So you were," Krispos agreed, "and I honor you for that. Do you doubt it?" Geirrod shook his massive head. Exasperated, Krispos snapped, "Then how have I failed you—aye, and all the other Halogai, too?"

"By not sending us forth in combat this day against those who follow Harvas, and holding us back despite what we told you on the road south of Imbros," Geirrod said. "It struck many among us as a slur, as a token you lack trust in us. Better we fare home to Halogaland than carry our axes where we may not blood them. Videssians delight in having troops for show. We took oath to fight for you, Majesty, not to look grand in your processions."

"If you truly think I held you back for fear you would betray me, blood your axe now, Geirrod." Not without second thoughts—the Halogai could be grimly literal—Krispos bent his head and waited. When no blow came, he straightened up and looked at Geirrod again. "Since you do not think so, how can you have lost any honor on account of me?"

The guardsman stiffened to attention. "Majesty, you speak sooth. I see this cannot be so. I shall say as much to my countrymen. Any who doubt me may measure their doubt against this," He hefted his axe.