Harry Turtledove - Fox and Empire

One of those men asked, "And why do you come to Ikos now, lord king?" His Elabonian was fluent enough, but had a half-lisping, halfhissing accent to it: traces of the language the folk of the old blood still sometimes spoke among themselves.

"Partly because I'm in retreat," Gerin admitted, "but also partly because I would hear what the farseeing god has to say about this-if lord Biton has anything to say about it."

The guardsman who had spoken first said, "You cannot bring your whole host into the valley to camp. It may be that they shall be permitted to traverse the valley, but they may not encamp in it."

"Why not?" Gerin asked. "Biton protects his own shrine. Even if we wanted to plunder, we wouldn't dare."

"But Biton's protection reaches less certainly to the villages around the sacred precinct," the temple guard replied. "We would not have them plundered. Surely, with your numbers, you can overcome us here, but what sort of welcome will you have from the god if you do?"

"A point," Gerin said. "A distinct point. Very well. It shall be as you say. I'd sooner have my men foraging off Aragis' lands than those here in the valley, anyhow."

"So, lord king, would we," the guardsman said. "You being allied to him, I hope you will forgive my saying so, but Aragis the Archer has not always made the most comfortable of neighbors."

"He hasn't always made the most comfortable of neighbors for me, either," the Fox answered, "and he has fewer reasons to keep from stepping on my toes than to keep from stepping on Biton's. Or rather, Biton can do a better job of stepping on Aragis' toes than I can."

"If he's not gone to war with you in all these years, lord king, he thinks you can do something along those lines," the guard said.

"You flatter me outrageously," Gerin said. He enjoyed flattery. There was, he told himself, nothing wrong with enjoying it. The trick was not to take it too seriously. When you started believing everything people told you about how clever you were, you proved you weren't so clever as they said.

He gave his army their orders. The men seemed content enough to rest where they were. "If the imperials try to bring us to battle, lord king, we'll make 'em sorry they were ever born," one of them said, which raised a cheer from the rest. Since the bulk of the force from south of the High Kirs was chasing Aragis, the Fox thought his men did have a decent chance of doing just that.

When he started forward, up into Biton's valley, Adiatunnus surprised him by coming ahead, too. "By your leave, lord king, I'm fain to be after seeing the Sybil myself," the Trokm? chieftain said. "The oracle here was a famous one, you'll know, even back in the days when I and all my people dwelt north of the Niffet."

"Yes, I did know that." Gerin nodded.

"But there's summat else you might not ha' known," Adiatunnus said. "Back before Balamung the wizard, the one you slew, now, back before he led us south over the river, some of our chieftains came down to Ikos to hear whether 'twould be wise to go with that uncanny kern. But they were never heard of again that I recall, puir wights."

"As a matter of fact, I knew that, too," the Fox answered. "They tried to kill me here. Van and I-and Elise, too-killed all of them but one. He decided moving against me wouldn't be a good notion, but Balamung caught him and burned him in a wicker cage."

"Ah, I mind me I heard summat o' that, now that you speak of it," Adiatunnus said. "But you'll not mind if I come with you the now?"

"Not unless you plan on trying to murder me inside the temple, the way those other Trokmoi did," Gerin replied.

"Nay, though I thank you for the offer," Adiatunnus said, which made Gerin snort. Adiatunnus went on, "I've had my chances, that I have, and the putting of you in the ground for good and all, I've found, is more trouble nor it's turned out to be worth."

"For your sweet and generous praises, far beyond my deserts, I thank you most humbly," the Fox said, and Adiatunnus snorted in turn. With a sigh, Gerin turned to Rihwin. "If the imperials do pitch into us, you're in command till I can get back. Send word to me straightaway, and try not to wreck the army till I can come and join the celebration."

Rihwin gave him a sour look. "For your sweet and generous praises, lord king, I thank you." Gerin chuckled and dipped his head, conceding the round to his fellow Fox.

When Dagref drove the chariot up toward the temple to Biton, Adiatunnus followed close in his own car. Above them floated Ferdulf. The temple guardsmen stared up at him with interest and curiosity. So did Gerin. He said, "Are you sure you want to visit the Sibyl and the farseeing god? Biton and your father don't get on well." That would do for an understatement till a better one came along, which he didn't think would happen soon.

Ferdulf turned a fine semidivine sneer his way. "Why should I care what my father thinks or does?" he returned. "Since he has no room in his life for me, do his views on others-even other gods-matter?"

"I told him he shouldn't have got into the wine," Gerin murmured to Van.

The outlander rolled his eyes. "A man's own children don't listen to him. Why should anyone else's children?"

"Whose son is that?" one of the guardsmen asked, pointing up to Ferdulf.

"Mavrix's," Gerin answered. "The Sithonian wine god got him on one of my peasant women."

"Is it so?" The warrior's eyes widened. "But Mavrix and the lord Biton worked together in driving the monsters off the surface of the earth and back into the caverns under Biton's shrine."

"So they did," Gerin agreed. "And it was the most quarrelsome cooperation you've ever seen in all your born days."

They drove past several neat little villages and the fields surrounding them. The peasants in the valley of Ikos were all freeholders, owing allegiance to no overlord save Biton. That arrangement had always smacked of anarchy to the Fox, but he, like Aragis, fought shy of trying to annex the valley. If Biton tolerated freeholders here, Gerin would, too.

Ferdulf flew down and hovered alongside Gerin like a large, badtempered mosquito. In confidential tones, he asked, "Do you think the farseeing god will be able to tell me how to take vengeance on my father?"

"I have no way of knowing that," Gerin said. "If I were you, though, Ferdulf, I wouldn't get my hopes too high."

"He's all god," Ferdulf muttered. "It's not fair."

"No, it probably isn't," Gerin admitted, "but I don't know what you can do about it, either."

White against greenery, the marble walls of Biton's shrine gleamed ahead. The earthquake that had released the monsters had also overthrown it, but Biton's own power restored it at the same time as Biton and Mavrix recontained the monsters.

"Isn't that pretty?" Adiatunnus said, and then, in speculative tones, "Doesn't look so strong as the wall of a proper keep, though. And I've heard the god keeps all manner of pretties inside, though."

"So he does," Gerin said, "and it's worth your life to try to steal any of them. Biton has a special plague he uses to smite people who walk off with what's his. I've seen one or two he's killed with it. It's not a pretty way to go."

Adiatunnus looked thoughtful, but no less acquisitive, as they drew near the temple compound. Back in the days when he was newly over the Niffet, he likely would have assumed Gerin was lying and tried to steal. He would have paid for it then. He would pay for it now if he tried it, too. Gerin didn't think he would be so foolish.

Outside the gates, attendants took charge of the two chariots. No others waited there. The shrine did not draw the crowds it had before the earthquake, let alone before the days when folk came from all over the Elabonian Empire, and even from beyond its borders, to gain the Sibyl's oracular responses.