Harry Turtledove - Krispos the Emperor

Phostis spurred toward him. To the Thanasioi, he was nothing—just another soldier, a nuisance, not a vital target like Krispos. He wounded three heretics from behind in quick succession. That sort of thing wasn't in the romances, either; they went on and on about glory and duels and fair fights. Real war, Phostis was discovering in a hurry, didn't concern itself with such niceties. If you stayed alive and the other fellow didn't, that was a triumph of strategy.

The Halogai also fought their way in Krispos' direction. So did all the reserves who saw he was in danger. Quite suddenly, no living Thanasioi were near the Avtokrator. Krispos' helmet had been battered so that it sat at a crazy angle on his head. He had a cut on his cheek—almost a match for Katakolon's— and another on his sword arm. His gilded mail shirt and shield were splashed with sticky red.

"Hello, everyone," he said. "Rather to my surprise, I find myself still in one piece."

Several variations of Glad you are rose into the air, Phostis' among them. He looked round for Syagrios, but did not see him. Real battle lacked the romances' neat resolutions, too.

Krispos went in the blink of an eye from a horseman fighting wildly for his life to the commander of a great host. "Drive them hard!" he shouted, pointing toward the center of the line. "See them waver? One good push and they'll break."

Had Zaidas not said Krispos lacked all talent for magic, Phostis might have believed him a wizard then. No sooner had he called attention to the sagging Thanasiot line than crimson banners began falling or being wrested from the hands of the heretics who bore them. The roar that went up from the imperials at that rang through the valley like a great horn call.

"How could you tell?" Phostis demanded.

"What? That?" Krispos thought for a moment, then looked sheepish. "Part of it comes from seeing a lot of fights. My eye knows the signs even if my mouth doesn't. And part of it— sometimes, don't ask me how, you can make your will reach over a whole battlefield."

"Maybe it is magic."

Phostis didn't realize he'd spoken out loud until Krispos nodded soberly. "Aye, it is, but not of the sort Zaidas practices. Evripos has a touch of it; I've seen that. You haven't yet had the chance to find out. You can rule without it, not doubt of that, but it makes life easier if it's there."

One more thing to worry about, Phostis thought. Then he shook his head. He needed to worry about two things, not one: whether he had the magic of leadership, and how vulnerable he would be if Evripos had it and he didn't.

At any other time, he might have occupied himself for hours, maybe days, with worries over those two. Now, with the battle swinging the imperials' way at last—could it be past noon already?—he had no leisure for fretting.

"Forward!" came the cry all along the line. Phostis was glad to press the fighting. It relieved him of having to think. As he'd found in Olyvria's arms, that could be a blessing of sorts. The only trouble was, worries didn't go away. When the fighting or the loving was done, they reared their heads again.

But not now. Shouting "Forward!" with the rest, he rode against the crumbling resistance of the Thanasioi.

Krispos looked out at victory and found it as appalling as it usually is. Pierced and mangled men and horses were the building blocks of what the chroniclers would one day call a splendid triumph of arms. At the moment, it reminded Krispos of nothing so much as an open-air slaughterhouse, down to the stink of entrails and the buzz of hungry flies.

Healer-priests wandered through the carnage, now and then stooping to aid some desperately wounded man. Their calling did not let them discriminate between Krispos' followers and the Thanasioi. Once, though, Krispos saw a blue-robe stand up and walk away from someone, shaking his shaven head in bewilderment. He wondered if a dying Thanasiot had possessed the courage to tell the healer he would sooner walk the gleaming path.

Most of the heretics, though, were glad enough to get any help the imperials gave them. They held out gashed arms and legs for bandages and obeyed their captors' commands with the alacrity of men who knew they might suffer for any transgression. In short, they behaved like other prisoners of war Krispos had seen over the years.

Katakolon rode up to the Avtokrator. "Father, they've run down the heretics' baggage train. In it they found some of the gold, ah, abstracted from the mint at Kyzikos."

"Did they? That's good news," Krispos said. "How much of the gold gold was recovered?"

"Something less than half the amount reported taken," Katakolon answered.

"More than I expected," Krispos said. Nevertheless, he suspected the troopers who'd captured the baggage train were richer now than when they'd started their pursuit. That was part of the price the Empire paid for civil war. If he tried to squeeze the gold out of them, he'd get a name for niggardliness that might lead to another revolt a year or three down the line.

"Your Majesty!" Another messenger waved frantically. "Your Majesty, we think we have Livanios!"

The gilded mail shirt that weighed on Krispos' shoulders all at once seemed lighter. "Fetch him here," the Avtokrator ordered. Then he raised his voice. "Phostis!"

"Aye, Father?" His eldest looked worn, but so did everyone else in the army.

"Did you hear that? They think they've caught Livanios. Will you identify him for me? You've see him often enough."

Phostis thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No," he said firmly.

"What?" Krispos glared at him. "Why not?"

"He's Olyvria's father," Phostis said. "How am I to live with her if I point the finger at him for the headsman?"

"Your mother's father plotted against me when you were a baby, do you know that?" Krispos said. "I exiled him to a monastery at Prista." The outpost on the northern shore of the Videssian Sea was as grim a place of exile as the Empire had.

"But did Mother tell you of his plot?" Phostis demanded. "And would you have taken his head if he'd not been her father?"

The questions, Krispos admitted to himself, were to the point. "No and yes, in that order," he said. Even after exiling Rhisoulphos, he'd been nervous about sleeping in the same bed with Dara for a while.

"There, you see?" Phostis said. "Livanios was an officer of ours. You'll have others here who can name him for you."

Krispos thought about ordering Phostis to do as he'd said, but not for long. He had learned better than to give orders that had no hope of being obeyed—and in any case, Phostis was right. "Let it be as you say, son," the Avtokrator said.

He watched in some amusement as Phostis, obviously ready to argue more, deflated. "Thank you," the younger man said, his voice full of relief.

Krispos nodded, then called, "Who among my soldiers knows the traitor and rebel Livanios by sight?"

The question ran rapidly through the army. Before long, several men sat their horses close by Krispos. Among them was Gainas, the officer who'd sent back to Videssos the city the dispatch warning of Livanios' defection to the gleaming path.

The prisoner himself took a while to arrive. When he did.

Krispos saw why: he was afoot, one of several captives with hands tied behind their backs so they could not even walk quickly. Phostis said, "The one on the left there, Father, is the mage Artapan."

"Very good," Krispos said quietly. If Artapan was in this group, then Livanios probably was. too. Phostis had, in fact, all but said he was. Here, though, the all but was important. Krispos turned to the men he'd assembled. "Which of them is Livanios?"

Without hesitation, they all pointed to the fellow two men away from Artapan. The captive straightened and glared at Krispos. He was doing his best to keep up a brave front. "I am Livanios. Do as you please with my body. My soul will walk the gleaming path beyond the sun and dwell with Phos forever."