Harry Turtledove - Krispos the Emperor

"No man is young enough to be happy fighting two," the Haloga said, which made him feel a little better.

Among them, his sons and the northerners had put an end to the other Thanasioi who'd broken through. Katakolon had a cut that stretched halfway across one cheek, but managed a blood-spattered smile for Krispos. "Iakovitzes won't like me so well anymore," he shouted.

"Ah, but all the girls will sigh over how brave you are," Krispos answered, which made his youngest son's smile wider.

Another Thanasiot surge. The Halogai on foot and Videssians on horseback contained it. Krispos gauged the fighting. He had not asked a great deal of his men, only that they hold their place against the onslaught of the Thanasioi. So much had they done. The heretics were bunched against them, still trying to force their way out of the valley.

"Send for Zaidas," Krispos commanded. A messenger rode off.

He soon returned with the wizard, who had not been far away. "Now, your Majesty?" Zaidas asked.

"The time will never be better," Krispos said.

Zaidas set to work. Most of his preparations for this magic had been made ahead of time. It was not. properly speaking, battle magic, nor directed against the Thanasioi. Battle magic had a way of failing; the stress of fighting raised emotions to such a pitch that a spell which might otherwise have been fatal failed to bite at all.

"Let it come forth!" Zaidas cried, and stabbed a finger up toward the sky. From his fingertip sprang a glowing green fireball that rose high above the heaving battle line, growing and getting brighter as it climbed. A few soldiers from both sides paused for an instant to call Phos' name or sketch the sun-sign above their hearts. Most, however, were too busy fighting for their lives to exclaim over the fireball or to notice it at all.

Zaidas turned to Krispos. "What magic may do, magic has done," he said. His voice was ragged and worn; sorcery cost those who worked it dear.

Little by little, the green fireball faded. Before too long, it was gone. Watching the indecisive fight to which he had committed his army, Krispos wondered if it had been sent skyward in vain. Men should have been watching for its flare ... but one of the lessons he'd learned after close to half a lifetime on the throne was the chasm that sometimes yawned between should have been and were.

His head went rapidly back and forth from one side of the valley to the other. "Where are they?" he demanded, not of anyone in particular but of the world at large.

As if that had been a cue, martial music rang out in the distance. Soldiers in the imperial army cheered like men possessed; the Thanasioi stared about in sudden confusion and alarm. Down into the valley from left and right rode fresh regiments of horsemen in line. "Krispos!" they cried as they bent their bows.

"Taken in both flanks, by the good god!" Sarkis exclaimed. "Your Majesty, my hat's off to you." He doffed the iron pot he wore on his head to show he meant his words literally.

"You helped come up with the plan," Krispos said. "Besides, we both ought to thank Zaidas for giving a signal the watchers from both concealed flanking parties could see and use. Better by far than trying to gauge when to come in by the sandglass or any other way I could think of."

"Very well." Sarkis took off his helmet for Zaidas, too.

The wizard's grin took years off his age and reminded Krispos of the eager, almost painfully bright youngster he'd been when he began his sorcerous service. That had been in the last campaign against Harvas, till now the hardest one Krispos had known. But civil war—and religious civil war at that—was worse than any attack from a foreign foe.

Where the Avtokrator and the general had praised his sorcery, Zaidas thought about the fighting that remained ahead. "We still have to win the battle," he said. "Fail in that and the best plan in the world counts for nothing."

Krispos studied the field. Had the Thanasioi been professional soldiers, they might have salvaged something by retreating as soon as they discovered themselves so disastrously outflanked. But all they understood of the military art was going forward no matter what. That only got them more thoroughly trapped.

For the first time since fighting began, Krispos turned loose a smile. "This is a battle we are going to win," he said.

Phostis was only a few feet from his father when Krispos claimed victory. He was no practiced strategist himself, but he could see that a foe attacked on three sides at once was on the way to destruction. He was glad Olyvria had stayed back at the camp. Though she'd given herself to him without reservation, seeing all her father's hopes go down in ruin could only bring her pain.

Phostis knew pain, too, but of a purely physical sort. His shoulder ached with the effort it took to hold up a shield against arrows and saber slashes. In another couple of weeks it could have borne the burden without complaint, but not yet.

Screeching "The gleaming path!" for all they were worth, the Thanasioi mounted yet another charge. And from the midst of the fanatics' ranks. Phostis heard another cry, one not fanatical at all: "If we slay the Avtokrator, lads, it's all up for grabs!"

Fueled by desperation, fervor, and that coldly rational cry, the heretics surged against the right wing of the imperial line. As they had once before, they shot and hacked their way through the Halogai and Videssians protecting Krispos. All at once, being of high rank stopped mattering.

Off to one side of Phostis, Sarkis laid about him with a vigor that denied his bulk. To the other, Krispos and Katakolon were both engaged. Before Phostis could spur his horse to their aid, someone landed what felt like a hammer blow to his shield.

He twisted in the saddle. His foe was yelling at the top of his lungs; his was the voice that had urged the Thanasioi against Krispos. "Syagrios!" Phostis yelled.

The ruffian's face screwed into a gap-toothed grimace of hate. "You, eh?" he said. "I'd rather carve you than your old man—I owe you plenty, by the good god." He sent a vicious cut at Phostis' head.

Just staying alive through the next minute or so was as hard as anything Phostis had ever done. He didn't so much as think of attack; defense was enough and more. Intellectually, he knew that was a mistake—if all he did was try to block Syagrios' blows, sooner or later one would get through. But they came in such unrelenting torrents that he could do nothing else. Syagrios was twice his age and more, but fought with the vigor of a tireless youth.

As he slashed, he taunted Phostis: "After I'm done with you, I'll settle accounts with that little whore who crowned me. Pity you won't be around to watch, on account of it'd be worth seeing. First I'll cut her a few times, just so she hurts while I'm—" He went into deliberately obscene detail.

Fury all but blinded Phostis. The only thing that kept him from attacking wildly, foolishly, was the calculating look in Syagrios' eyes as he went through his speech. He was working to enrage, to provoke. Refusing to give him what he wanted was the best thing Phostis saw to do.

A Haloga came up on Syagrios' left side. The ruffian had no shield, but managed to turn aside the guardsman's axe with the flat of his blade. That wouldn't work every time, and he knew it. He spurred his horse away from the northerner—and from Phostis.

As he drew back, Phostis cut at him. The stroke missed. Phostis laughed. In the romances, the hero always slashed the villain into steaks. In real life, you were lucky if you didn't get hacked to bits yourself.

Since he was for the moment not beset, Phostis looked around to see how his comrades were faring. He found Krispos in the midst of a sea of shouting Thanasioi. The Avtokrator, badly beset, slashed frantically this way and that.