Harry Turtledove - Krispos of Videssos

"I very much fear he doesn't," Krispos said, "but with Trokoundos slain, how can I answer him? Unless ..." His voice trailed away.

"Just so," Tanilis said. "I tried to warn your wizard, there at the end, but he was too full of himself to hear or heed me."

" I heard you," Krispos exclaimed.

"I thought you might have. Harvas is also stronger than I am. This I know. I will stand against him all the same, for my Emperor and for my son." She slid down from her horse and approached the barrier Harvas had set in front of the flying column. After some minutes' study, she turned back to Krispos. "Considering what you may find on the other side, your warriors would be well advised to form line of battle."

"Aye." Krispos waved. The command ran down the column. The troopers moved smoothly into place. They still sent wary glances toward the black wall, but the routine of having orders to follow soaked up some of their fear.

Instead of stabbing at the barrier with a peremptory index finger, Tanilis gently touched it with the palm of her hand. Krispos held his breath; his heard pounded as he wondered if the livid lightnings would consume her as they had Trokoundos. The lightnings flashed. Some of the soldiers groaned—they had no great hope for her.

"Is she mad?" one man said.

"No, she knows what she's about," another answered, his eastern accent hinting that he came from somewhere not far from Opsikion. "That's the lady Tanilis, that is, mother to Mavros the dead Sevastos and a sorceress in her own right, if the tales be true." His words went up and down the line, faster than Krispos' command had: rumors were more interesting than orders.

Tanilis' back stiffened, arched ... but only a little. "No, Harvas, not now," she said, so softly Krispos barely heard. "You have already hurt me worse than this." It was as if she did not fight against whatever torment the black barrier dealt out, but rather accepted it, and in accepting defeated it.

The wall seemed to sense that. The lightnings blazed ever brighter around Tanilis as it sought to lay her low. But she refused to topple. "No," she said again, very clearly. Again the lightnings increased, this time to a peak of such brilliance that Krispos had to turn his head away, his eyes watering. "No," Tanilis said for a third time from the heart of that firestorm.

Through slitted eyelids, Krispos looked back toward her. She still stood defiant—and all at once the black wall's force yielded to her stronger will. The lightning ceased; the barrier melted into the thin air from which it had sprung.

The imperial soldiers cried out in triumph at that. Then, a moment later, they cried out again. The black wall's vanishing revealed the Halogai who had been advancing on the flying column under its cover. Harvas, too, would have let the barrier disappear, no doubt, but at a time of his own choosing.

"Forward!" Krispos shouted. "The cry is 'Mavros'!"

"Mavros!" the Videssians thundered. They rolled toward Harvas' Haloga, then rolled over them. The northerners were caught in loose order, confident they would find foes ripe for the slaughter. Some of them turned tail when the downfall of the barrier showed that Krispos' men were more ready for battle than they. More stood and fought. They followed a wicked leader, but kept their own fierce pride. It availed them nothing. The imperials rode them down, then rode on toward the northern mouth of the pass. "Mavros!" they shouted again and again, and another cry: "Tanilis!"

"We may yet bottle Harvas up in there," Sarkis yelled to Krispos, his black eyes snapping with excitement.

"Aye." When Krispos' horse even thought of slowing, he roweled it with his spurs. Normally he was gentle to his mounts, but now he would not willingly lose so much as an instant. A solid line across the outlet to the pass and Harvas' army was done for.

The exultation in the thought almost made Krispos drunk. Almost. That army would be done for unless Harvas magicked it free. Despite Tanilis, despite all the mages from the Sorcerers' Collegium, the possibility remained real. Any time Krispos was tempted to forget it, he had only to think of Trokoundos' twisted body, now more than a mile behind him.

He saw the mouth of the pass ahead. Get his men across it and— "Rein in!" he shouted, and followed that with a volley of curses. Harvas' Halogai were already streaming north out of the trap. Some carried axes at the ready, others bore them over their shoulders. The long files of fighting men were ready for action, unlike the now-shattered band that had been on the way to deal with Krispos' column.

"Too many for us to head," Sarkis said, gauging the enemy's numbers with a practiced eye.

"I fear you're right, worse luck for us," Krispos answered. "He's pulled them out just in time. Maybe he could tell when his wall went down, or some such. Even if we can't keep him there, though, let's see how much we can hurt his soldiers. They're giving us their flank for a target."

Sarkis nodded and brought up his hand in salute. "Mammianos said you were learning the trade of war. I see he's right." The scout commander raised his voice. "Archers!"

Shouting enthusiastically, the bowmen began to ply their trade. Shooting from horseback did not make for accurate archery, but with a massed target like the one they had, they did not need to be accurate. Halogai screamed; Halogai stumbled; Halogai fell.

Some of the northerners awkwardly shifted their shields to their right sides to help ward themselves from the arrows that rained down on them. Others, singly and then by troops and companies, rushed toward their tormentors. The archers could not come close to shooting all of them before they closed the gap and began to swing axe and sword. Imperial lancers spurred forward to protect the bowmen. Half a dozen melees developed all along the imperial line. As more and more Halogai poured out of the pass, Krispos' men found themselves outnumbered.

"Pull back!" he shouted. "We didn't come here to take on Harvas' whole bloody army by ourselves. He's out of the pass, and that's what counts. Do you think he can hold all the rest of our own troops out of Kubrat with just a rearguard? Not likely!"

An army of Halogai would either have ignored Krispos' order or taken it as a signal to panic. They fought as much for the joy of fighting as to gain advantage. The Videssians were less ferocious and more flexible. They drew back, stinging Harvas' footsoldiers with more arrows as they did so. The lancers nipped in to cut off and destroy bands of Halogai who pursued with too much spirit. Again and again the Halogai paid in blood to learn that lesson.

"I don't think Harvas is leaving much of a rearguard in there," Sarkis said late that afternoon. By then the running fight had moved close to ten miles into Kubrat; Krispos was hard-pressed to stretch the limited manpower of his column to cover all of Harvas' army.

Like wildfire, a cheer ran up the Videssian line from the south. At last it—and the news that caused it—reached Krispos, who was near the northern end of his force as it skirmished with Harvas' scouts and vanguard. "Our own men are coming up out of the pass!" someone bawled in his ear.

"That's good," Krispos said automatically. Then the full meaning of what he'd heard sank in. He let loose with a yell that made his horse sidestep and switch its ears in reproach. "We have him!"

But as Harvas had shown south of Imbros, he was general as well as wizard. Rearguards had to be beaten down; sorcerous screens had to be cautiously probed and even more cautiously eliminated. By the time night fell, he had succeeded in breaking off contact between his army and most of his Videssian pursuers, though the flying column still hung just off his right flank.

Krispos made his way back to where the main imperial army was setting up camp. He smiled to find his own tent erect and waiting for him. He invited Mammianos over. When the fat general arrived, he clapped him on the back. "You couldn't have done a better job of timing your attack on Harvas' barricade," he said.