Harry Turtledove - Krispos the Emperor

"You don't mean men, you mean you," Olyvria said with a catlike pounce. Phostis spread his hands, conceding the point. He didn't mind yielding on small things if that let him keep hold of the big ones. He slowly nodded—Krispos would have handled this the same way.

Someone rode up to the nearby imperial pavilion in a tearing hurry. A moment later, Krispos started yelling for Sarkis. Not long after that, the Avtokrator and his general both yelled for messengers. And not long after that, the whole camp started stirring, though it had to be well into the third hour of the night.

"What do you suppose that's all about?" Olyvria asked.

Phostis had an idea of what it might be about, but before he could answer, someone called from outside the tent, "Are you two decent in there?"

Olyvria looked offended. Phostis didn't—he recognized the voice. "Aye, decent enough," he called back. "Come on in, Katakolon."

His younger brother pushed aside the entry flap. "If you are decent, you've probably been listening to all the fuss outside." Katakolon's eyes gleamed with excitement.

"So we have," Phostis said. "What is it? Have scouts brought back word that they've run into the Thanasioi?"

"Oh, to the ice with you," Katakolon said indignantly. "I was hoping to bring a surprise, and here you've gone and figured it out."

"Never mind that," Phostis said. "The fuss means we fight tomorrow?"

"Aye," Katakolon answered. "We fight tomorrow."

XII

Katakolon pointed to the rising cloud of dust ahead. "Soon now, Father," he said.

"Aye, very soon," Krispos agreed. Through the dust, the early morning sun sparkled off the iron heads of arrows and javelins, off chain mail shirts, off the polished edges of sword blades. The Thanasioi were hurrying through the pass, heading back toward Etchmiadzin after a raid that had spanned most of the length of the westlands.

Sarkis said, "Now, your Majesty?"

Krispos tasted the moment. "Aye, now," he said.

Sarkis waved. Quietly, without the trumpet calls that usually would have ordered them into action, two regiments of cavalry rode up the pass from the imperial lines. Sarkis' grin filled his fat face. "That should give them something new to think about. If Zaidas spoke truly, they don't know we're anywhere nearby, let alone in front of them."

"I hope he spoke truly," Krispos said. "I think he did. By all the signs his magic could give, their Makuraner mage is altogether stifled."

"The good god grant it be so," Sarkis said. "I have no love for Makuraners; every so often they take it into their heads that the princes of Vaspurakan should be forced to reverence their Prophets Four rather than Phos."

"One day, maybe, Videssos can do something about that," Krispos said. The Empire, he thought, ought to protect all those who followed the lord with the great and good mind. But

Vaspurakan had lain under the rule of the Kings of Kings of Makuran for a couple of hundred years.

"Begging your pardon, your Majesty, but I'd sooner we were free altogether," Sarkis said. "Likely your hierarchs would make spiritual masters no more pleasant than the men from Mashiz. Your folk would be as harsh on us as heretics as the Makuraners are on us as infidels."

"Seems to me you're both quarreling over the taste of a loaf you don't have," Katakolon said.

Krispos laughed. "You're probably right, son—no, you are right." Thin in the distance, shouts said that the Thanasioi and the regiments Krispos had sent out to delay them were knocking heads.

This time, Krispos waved. Now trumpets and drums and pipes rang loud. The imperial force that had been aligned parallel to the direction of the pass swung in a great left wheel to block its mouth and keep the heretics from breaking through.

As the imperials raised their own dust and then as they came into view, the shouts from the Thanasioi got louder. Their red banners waved furiously. They might have been taken by surprise, but there was no quit in them. On they came, driving the lead regiments back on the main body of Krispos' force.

The Avtokrator, who now stood at his army's extreme right rather than to the fore, admired the bravery of the Thanasioi. He would have admired it even more had it been aimed at the Empire's foreign enemies rather than against him.

Phostis tapped him on the shoulder, pointing to the center of the heretics' line. "That's Livanios, Father: the fellow in the gilded shirt between those two flags there."

Krispos' eye followed Phostis' finger. "I see the man you mean. His helm is gilded, too, isn't it? For someone who leads a heresy where all men are condemned to the least they can stand, he likes imperial trappings well, doesn't he?"

"He does," Phostis agreed. "That's one of the reasons I decided I couldn't stomach the Thanasioi: too much hypocrisy there for me to stand."

"I see," Krispos said slowly. Had Livanios been a sincere fanatic rather than an opportunist, then, he might have used Phostis' self-righteousness to draw him deep into the Thanasiot movement. But a sincerely destructive fanatic would not have gone after the imperial mint at Kyzikos. Had Krispos needed any further explication of Livanios' character, that raid would have given it to him.

Which was not to say he lacked courage. He threw himself into the thick of the fighting, flinging javelins and slashing with his saber when the battle came to close quarters.

It was, to all appearances, a fight devoid of tactical subtlety. The Thanasioi wanted to break through the imperial line; Krispos' soldiers aimed to keep them bottled up inside the pass. They plied the heretics with arrows from a line several men deep. Even when the first ranks had to struggle hand to hand, those behind them kept shooting at the Thanasioi who piled up ever tighter against the barrier the imperials had formed.

Fewer Thanasioi were archers. In any case, archery by itself would not sweep aside Krispos' men. In spite of the galling wounds they received, the heretics charged again and again, seeking to hew a path through their foes. "The path!" they cried. "The gleaming path!"

Along with trying to break through in the center, the Thanasioi also sent wave after wave of fighters against Krispos and his retinue. With their shields, mail shirts, and heavy axes, the Halogai stood like a dam between the Avtokrator and the fighters who sought to lay him low. But the northerners could not hold all arrows away from him. He had a shield of his own, and needed it to protect his face.

His horse let out a frightened squeal and tried to rear. Krispos fought the animal back under control. An arrow protruded from its rump. Poor beast, he thought—it knew nothing of the differences in worship because of which it had been wounded.

The Thanasioi charged again. This time some of them broke through his screen of bodyguards. Phostis traded saber strokes with one, Katakolon with another. That left Krispos facing two at once. He slashed at the one on his right side, used his shield to hold off the blows of the one to his left, and hoped someone would come to his aid soon.

Suddenly the horse of the Thanasiot to his right screamed, far louder and more terribly than his own mount had a few minutes before. A Haloga axe had bitten into its spine, just behind its rider. The horse foundered. The Haloga raised his axe again and slew the Thanasiot.

That let Krispos turn against his other foe. He still remembered how to use a sword himself, and slashed the fellow on the forearm. Another Haloga guard, his axe dripping gore, bore down on the heretic. The Thanasiot ignored him, bending every effort toward slaying the Avtokrator. He paid the price for his fanaticism: the guardsman hacked him out of the saddle.

"Thanks." Krispos panted. Sweat ran down his forehead and stung his eyes. "I'm getting old for this business, much as I hate to admit it."