The Thousand Cities

XI

Abivard slashed at Tzikas with more fury than science. The Videssian renegade-or possibly by now rerenegade- parried the blow with his own sword. Sparks flew as the iron blades belled off each other. Tzikas gave back a cut that Abivard blocked. They struck more sparks.

«You sent me to my death!» Tzikas screamed.

«You slandered me to the King of Kings,» Abivard retorted. «You told nothing but lies about me and everything I did. I gave you what you deserved, and I waited too long to do it.»

«You never gave me the credit I deserve,» Tzikas said.

«You never give anyone around you anything but a kick in the balls, whether he deserves it or not,» Abivard said.

As they spoke, they kept cutting at each other. Neither could get through the other's defense. Abivard looked around the field. To his dismay, to his disgust, the same held true of the Makuraners and the Videssians. Tzikas' ferocious counterattack had blunted his last chance for a breakthrough.

«You just saved the fight for a man you tried to murder by magic,» Abivard said. If he couldn't slay Tzikas with his sword, he might at least wound him with words.

The renegade's face contorted. «Life doesn't always turn out to be what we think it will, by the God,» he said, but at the same time he named the God he also sketched Phos' sun-circle above his heart. Abivard got the idea that Tzikas had no idea which side he belonged on, save only-and always-his own.

A couple of other Videssians rode toward Abivard. He drew back. Wary of a trap, Tzikas did not press him. For once Abivard had no trap waiting. But were he Tzikas, he would have been wary, too. He heartily thanked the God he was not Tzikas, and he did not make Phos' sun-sign as he did so.

He looked over the field again in the fading light to see if he had any hope left of turning victory into rout. Try as he would, he saw none. Here were his banners, and there were those of the Videssians. Horsemen and foot soldiers still hewed at one another, but he did not think anything they did would change the outcome now. Instead of a battlefield, the fight looked more like a picture of a battle on a tapestry or wall painting.

Abivard frowned. That was an odd thought He stiffened. No, not a picture of a battle-an image of a battle, an image he had seen before. This was the fight Panteles had shown him. He hadn't known, when he had seen it, whether he was looking on past or future. Now, too late to do him any good-as was often true of prophecy-he had the answer.

The Videssians withdrew toward their camp. They kept good order and plainly had plenty of fight left in them. After a last couple of attacks, as twilight began to fall, Abivard let them go.

From his right someone rode up calling his name. His hand tightened on the hilt of his sword. After a clash with Tzikas, he suspected everyone. The approaching horseman wore the full armor of the Makuraner heavy cavalry and rode an armored horse as well. Abivard remained cautious. Armor could be captured, and horses, too. And the chain mail veil the rider wore would disguise a Videssian in Makuraner clothing.

That veil also had the effect of disguising the voice. Not until the rider drew very close did Abivard recognize Romezan. «By the God,» he exclaimed, «I wouldn't have known you from your gear. You look as if you've had a smith pounding on you.»

If anything, that was an understatement. A sword stroke had sheared the bright, tufted crest from atop Romezan's helm. His surcoat had been cut to ribbons. Somewhere in the fighting he'd

lost not only his lance but also his shield. Through the rents in his surcoat Abivard could see the dents in his armor. He had an arrow sticking out of his left shoulder, but by the way he moved his arm, it must have lodged in the padding he wore beneath his lamellar armor, not in his flesh.

«I feel as if a smith's been pounding on me,» he said. «I've got bruises all over; three days from now I'll look like a sunset the court poets would sing about for years.» He hung his head. «Lord, I fear I held off on the charge till too late. If I'd loosed my men at the Videssians sooner, we'd have had so much more time in which to finish the job of beating them.»

«It's done,» Abivard said; he was also battered and bruised and, as usual after a battle, deathly tired. He thought Romezan had held off till too late, too, but what good would screaming about it do now? «We hold the field where we fought; we can claim the victory.»

«It's not enough,» Romezan insisted, as hard on himself as he was on the foe. «You wanted to smash them, not just push them back. We could have done it, too, if I'd moved faster. I have to say, though, I didn't think Videssians could fight that well.»

«If it makes you feel any better, neither did I,» Abivard said. «For as long as I've been warring against them, when we send in the heavy cavalry, they give way. But not today.»

«No, not today.» Romezan twisted in the saddle, trying to find a way to make the armor fit more comfortably on his sore carcass. «You were right, lord, and I own it. They can be very dangerous to us.»

«Right at the end I thought we would break through here on the left,» Abivard said. «They threw the last of their reserves in to stop us, and they did. You'll never guess who was leading those reserves.»

«No, eh?» All Abivard could see of Romezan was his eyes, They widened. «Not Tzikas?»

«The very same. Somehow Maniakes has found a way to keep him alive and keep him tame, at least for now, because he fought like a demon.»

For the next considerable while Romezan spoke with pungent ingenuity. The gist of what he said boiled down to how very unfortunate, but he put it rather more vividly than that. When he'd calmed down to the point where he no longer seemed to be imitating a kettle boiling over, he said, «We may be sorry, but Maniakes also will be. Tzikas is more dangerous to the side he's on than to the one he isn't on, because you never know when he's going to go over to the other one.»

«I've had the same notion,» Abivard said. «But while he's being good for Maniakes, he knows he has to be very good indeed or the Avtokrator will stake him out for the crows and buzzards.»

«If it were me, I'd do it whether he was being very good indeed or not,» Romezan said.

«So would I,» Abivard agreed. «And next time I get the chance-and there's likely to be a next time-I will… unless I don't»

«Do we pick up the fight tomorrow, lord?» Romezan asked. «If it were up to me, I would, but it isn't up to me.»

«I won't say yes or no till morning,» Abivard answered. «We'll see what sort of shape the army is in then and see what the Videssians are doing, too.» He yawned. «I'm so tired now, I might as well be drunk. My head will be clearer come morning, too.»

«Ha!» Romezan said in a voice so full of doubt, a Videssian would have been proud to claim it. «I know you better than that, lord. You'll have scouts wake you half a dozen times in the night to tell you what they can see of the Videssian camp.»

«After most fights I'd do just that,» Abivard said. «Not tonight.»«Ha!» Romezan said again. Abivard maintained a dignified silence.

As things worked out, scouts woke Abivard only four times during the night. He couldn't decide whether that demolished Romezan's point or proved it.

The news the scouts brought back was so utterly predictable, so utterly normal, that Abivard could have neglected to send them out and still have had almost as good a notion of what the

Videssians were doing. The foe kept a great many fires going through the first watch of the night, fewer in the second, and only those near their guard positions for the third. Maniakes' men would have done the same had they not just fought a great murdering battle. They gave the Makuraners no clue to their intentions.

But when morning came, all that lay on the Videssian campsite were the remains of the fires and a few tents, enough to create the impression in dim light that many more were there. Maniakes and his men had decamped at some unknown hour of the night.

Following them was anything but hard. An army of some thousands of men could hardly slip without a trace through the grass like an archer gliding ever closer to a deer. Thousands of men rode thousands of horses, which left tracks and other reminders of their presence.

And in retreat an army often discarded things its men would keep if they were advancing. The more things soldiers threw away, the likelier their retreat was to be a desperate one.

By that standard the Videssians did not strike Abivard as desperate. Yes, they were running away from Abivard and his men. But they were a long way from jettisoning everything that kept them from running faster.

Abivard did some jettisoning of his own: not without regret he let Turan's foot soldiers fall behind. «The Videssians are all counted,» he told his lieutenant. «If you stay with us, we can't move fast enough to catch up with them. You follow behind. If it looks as if Maniakes is turning to offer battle again, we'll wait till you catch up to start fighting if we can.»

«Meanwhile, we eat your dust,» Turan said. A couple of years campaigning as an infantry officer seemed to have made him forget he'd served for years as a horseman before. But, however reluctantly, he nodded. «I see the need, lord, no matter how little I like it. I aim to surprise you, though, with how fast we can march.»

«I hope you do,» Abivard said. Then he summoned Sanatruq, having a use for an intrepid, aggressive young officer. «I am going to put the lightly armed cavalry in your hands. I want you to course ahead of the heavy horse, the way the hounds course ahead of the hunters when we're after antelope. Bring the Videssians to bay for me. Harass them every way you can think of.»

Sanatruq's eyes glowed. «Just as you say, lord. And if Tzikas is still heading up Maniakes' rear guard, I have a small matter or two to discuss with him as well.»

«We all have a small matter or two to discuss with Tzikas,» Abivard said. He drew his sword. «I've been honing my arguments, you might say.» Sanatruq grinned and nodded. He rode off, shouting to the Makuraner horse archers to stop whatever they were doing and get busy doing what he told them.

Be careful, Abivard thought as the light cavalry went trotting out ahead of the more heavily armored riders. Tzikas was liable to be trouble no matter how careful you were; that was why so many people had so much to discuss with him.

Almost as an afterthought, Abivard dashed off a quick letter to Sharbaraz, detailing not only the victory he had won over the imperials but also Tzikas' role in making that victory less than it should have been. Let's see the cursed renegade try to get back into the good graces of the King of Kings after that, he thought with considerable satisfaction.

The farther south Maniakes rode, the closer to the source of the Tutub he drew. The land rose. In administrative terms it was still part of the land of the Thousand Cities, but it was unlike the floodplain on which those cities perched. For one thing, the hills here were natural, not the end product of countless years of rubble and garbage. For another, none of the Thousand Cities was anywhere close by. A few fanners lived by the narrow stream of the Tutub and the even narrower tributaries feeding it. A few hunters roamed the wooded hills. For the most part, though, the land seemed empty, deserted.

Abivard wondered what Maniakes had in mind in such unpromising country. He understood why this part of the region remained unfamiliar to him: it wasn't worth visiting. He wished the Videssians joy of it. At an officers' council he said, «If they try to stay here, they'll starve, and in short order, too. If they try to leave, they'll have to cross a fair stretch of country worse than this before they come to any that's better.»

Sanatruq said, «If they leave, we'll have driven them out of the land of the Thousand Cities. That was what Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase, set us to do at the start of the campaigning season. I'm not sure anyone thought we could do it, but we've done it.»

«We had a certain amount of expert help, for which I'm grateful,» Abivard said to Romezan.

«You wanted to force battle,» the noble of the Seven Clans said. «You were forcing battle when I rode up and found you. Anyone who goes out and fights the enemy deserves to win, so I was glad to give whatever little help I could.» Get in there and fight and worry later about what's supposed to happen next should have been blazoned on Romezan's surcoat and painted in big letters on the front of his armor.

«Looks to me like good country for scouring with light cavalry,» Abivard said, nodding to Sanatruq. «The rest of us can follow after they've developed whatever positions the Videssians are holding.»

«What do you think the Videssians are doing here, lord?» Romezan asked. «Are they really finished for this campaigning season, or do they aim to give us one more boot in the crotch if we let'em?»

«From what I know of Maniakes, I'd say he wants to hit us again if he finds the chance,» Abivard said. «But I admit that's only a guess.» He grinned at the noble of the Seven Clans. «You asked me just to hear me guess so you can twit me for it if I turn out to be wrong.»

«Ha!» Romezan said. «I can figure you for foolish without getting as complicated as that.»

Abivard waited till his subordinates were done laughing, then said, «We'll go ahead as if we're certain Maniakes is lying in wait for us. Better to worry and be wrong than not to worry-and be wrong.» Not even Romezan could argue with him there.

Up close, the ground was worse than it appeared. The road through the highlands from which the Tutub sprang wound into little rocky valleys and over hillsides so packed with thorny, spiky scrub plants that going off it cut your speed not in half but to a quarter of what it was on the track.

No, that wasn't true. Going out into the scrub cut your speed to a quarter of what it would have been if the road had been unobstructed. The road, however, was anything but. The Videssians had thoughtfully sown it with caltrops, the exact equivalent for this terrain of breaking canals in the floodplain. Abivard's men had to slow down to clear the spikes, which let Maniakes' force increase its lead.

And to complicate things further, every so often the Videssians would post archers in the undergrowth by the side of the road and try to pot a few of the Makuraners who were picking up the caltrops. That meant Abivard had to send men after them, and that meant he lost still more time.

Seeing Maniakes getting ever farther ahead ate at him. He wanted to keep moving through the night. That made even Romezan raise an eyebrow. «In this wretched country,» he rumbled, «it's hard enough to move during the day. At night-»

If Romezan didn't think it could be done, it couldn't. «But Maniakes is going to get away from us,» Abivard said. «We haven't been able to slow him down no matter how we've tried. And if he can travel two or three more days, he'll strike the river that runs south and east to Lyssaion, and he'll have ships waiting there. Ships.» As he often had of late, he made the word a curse.

«If we take Lyssaion, he may have ships, but he won't have anywhere they can land,» Romezan said.

Abivard shook his head with real regret. «Too late in the year to besiege the place,» he said, «and we haven't got the supplies with us to undertake a siege, anyhow.» He waited to see whether Romezan would argue with that. The noble from the Seven Clans looked unhappy but kept quiet. Abivard went on, «We have driven him out of the land of the Thousand Cities. At the start of the campaigning season I would have been happy to settle for that.»

«Generals who are happy to settle for less than the most they can get mostly don't end up with much,» Romezan observed. That made Abivard bite his lip, for it was true.

Coming to a town in the middle of that rugged country was a surprise. The Videssians had burned the place in passing, but it had been little more than a village even before they had put it to the torch. They'd dumped dead animals into the wells that were probably the town's reason for being, too. After that, though, they seemed to have relented, for they stopped leaving caltrops in the roadway. That might, of course, have indicated a dearth of caltrops rather than a sudden surge in goodwill.

«Now we can make better time,» Romezan said, noting the absence of the freestanding spiked obstructions. He shouted for the vanguard to speed up, then turned to Abivard, saying, «We'll catch the bastards yet; see if we don't.»

«Maybe we will,» Abivard replied. «The God grant we do.» He scratched his head. «It's not like the Videssians to make things easy for us, though.»

«They can't do everything right all the time,» Romezan grunted. «When they squat over a slit trench, it's not rose petals that come out.» He shouted again for more speed. Abivard pondered his analogy.

As the day went on, Abivard began to think the noble from the Seven Clans might have had a point. The army hadn't moved so fast since it had gotten into the uplands, and the Videssians couldn't be very far ahead. One more engagement and Maniakes might not be able to get his army back to Lyssaion.

And then, not long before Abivard was going to order his forces out of their column and into a line of battle despite the rugged terrain, a rider came galloping up the path from the southeast, from the Videssian force toward the Makuraners. He was shouting something in the Makuraner tongue as he drew near. Before long Abivard, who was riding at the front of the column, could make out what it was: «Stop! Hold up! It's a trap!»

Abivard turned to the horn players. «Blow halt,» he commanded. «We have to find out what this means.»

As the call rang out and the horsemen obediently reined in, Abivard studied the approaching horseman, who kept yelling at the top of his lungs. Because the fellow was bawling so hoarsely, Abivard needed longer than he should have to realize he recognized that voice. His jaw fell.

Before he could speak the name, Romezan beat him to it: «That's Tzikas. It can't be, but it is.»

«It really is,» Abivard breathed. By then he could see the renegade's face; Videssians usually didn't go in for chain mail veils. «What is he doing here? Did he try killing Maniakes one more time and botch it again? If he did kill him, he'd do us a favor, but if he killed him, he'd be back with the Videssian army, not coming up to ours.»

Tzikas rode straight up to Abivard, as he had in battle a few days before. This time, though, he did not draw the sword that hung on his hip. «The God be praised,» he said in his lisping Videssian accent. «I've gotten to you before you rode into the trap.» The gelding on which he was mounted was blowing and foam-flecked; he'd come at a horse-killing pace.

«What are you talking about, Tzikas?» Abivard ground out. Nothing would have pleased him more man slaying the renegade. No one could stop him now, not with Tzikas coming alone to him in the midst of his army. But the Videssian never would have done such a thing without a pressing reason. Until Abivard found out what that reason was, Tzikas would keep breathing.

Tzikas wasn't breathing well now; gasping was more like it. «Trap,» he said, pointing over his shoulder. «Magic. Back there.»

«Why should I believe you?» Abivard said. «Why should I ever believe you?» He turned to the men of the vanguard, who were gaping at Tzikas as if he were a ghost walking among men. «Seize him! Drag him off his horse. Disarm him. The God alone knows what mischief he's plotting.»

«You're mad!» Tzikas shouted as the Makuraners carried out Abivard's orders. «Why would I stick my head in the lion's mouth if I didn't wish you and the King of Kings well?»

«Escaping from Maniakes comes to mind,» Abivard replied. «So does looking for another chance to drag my name through the dirt for Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase.» For a despised foreigner like Tzikas, he appended Sharbaraz' honorific formula.

«Why should I want to escape Maniakes when you're just as eager to do me in?» Tzikas asked bitterly. «He gloated about that-by the God, how he gloated about it.»

«He gloated so hard and made you hate him so much that you commanded his rear guard, you rode out to challenge me to single combat, and your counterattack wrecked our last chance of beating him,» Abivard said. «You were swearing by Phos then, or at least your hand was, though your mouth didn't tell it everything. By the God, Tzikas-» He put into the oath all the contempt he had in him. «-what would you have done if you'd decided you liked the Avtokrator?

«My hand? I don't know what you're talking about,» Tzikas said sullenly. It might even have been true. He went on, «Go ahead-mock me, slay me, however you please. And go ahead, run right after the Videssian army. Maniakes will give you a kiss on the cheek for helping him along. See if he doesn't.»

He had, if not all the answers, enough of them to make Abivard doubt himself and his purpose. But then, Tzikas usually had a great store of answers, plenty to make you doubt yourself. Videssians bounced truth and lies back and forth, as if in mirrors, till you couldn't tell what you were seeing. Abivard sometimes wondered whether the imperials themselves could keep track.

One thing at a time, then. «What sort of magic is it, Tzikas?»

«I don't know,» the renegade answered. «Maniakes didn't tell me. All I know is, I saw his wizards hard at work back there after he and his wife-his cousin who is his wife-had been closeted with them for a couple of hours before they started doing whatever they were doing. I didn't think it was for your health and well-being. I was commanding the rear guard-he'd come to trust me that far again. When I saw my chance, I galloped here. And look at the thanks you give me for it, too.»

«You can check this, lord,» Romezan rumbled. He'd listened to Tzikas with the same mixture of fascination and doubt Abivard felt.

I know I can. I intend to,» Abivard said. He turned to his men and said to one of them, «Fetch Bozorg and Panteles up here. If there's any magic up ahead, they'll sniff it out. And if there's not, Tzikas here will wish he'd stayed to suffer Maniakes' tender mercy when he finds out what we end up doing to him.» As the soldier hurried off, Abivard shifted to the Videssian to ask a mocking question: «Do you follow that, eminent sir?»

«Perfectly well, thank you.» Tzikas had sangfroid, no two ways about it. But then, a man would hardly arrive at a position where he could commit treason-let alone repeated treason-without a goodly helping of sangfroid.

Abivard fretted and stewed. While he waited, Maniakes and his army were getting farther away every moment After what seemed an interminable delay, Bozorg and Panteles came trotting up behind the soldier Abivard had sent to bring them. He watched Tzikas watching the Videssian in his service and made up his mind not to let the two of them be alone together if he could help it.

No time to worry about that, though. Abivard spoke to the two mages: «This, as you know, is the famous and versatile Tzikas of the Videssian army, our army, the Videssians again, and now- maybe-ours once more.»

«One of those transfers was involuntary on my part,» Tzikas said. Yes, he had sangfroid and to spare.

As if he hadn't spoken, as if Bozorg and Panteles weren't staring wide-eyed at the famous and versatile Tzikas, whom they could not have expected to find returned to allegiance to the King of Kings-if he had returned to allegiance to the King of Kings- Abivard went on, «Tzikas says the Videssians are planning something unpleasantly sorcerous for us up ahead. I want you to find out whether that's so. If it is, I suppose Tzikas may have earned his life. If not, I promise he will keep it longer than he wants to but not long.»

«Aye, lord,» Bozorg said.

«It shall be as you say, eminent sir,» Panteles added in Videssian. Abivard wished he hadn't done that. The soldiers of the vanguard, from the lowliest trooper up through Romezan, looked from him to Tzikas and back again, tarring both of them with the same brush. Abivard didn't want Panteles getting any ideas, from any source, about disloyalty.

The two wizards worked together smoothly enough, more smoothly than they had when they had been trying to cross the canal, when Bozorg had reckoned the Voimios strap only a figment of Panteles' imagination and a twisted figment at that. Now, sometimes chanting antiphonally, sometimes pointing and gesturing down the road in the direction from which Tzikas had come, sometimes roiling the dust with their spells, they probed what lay ahead.

At last Bozorg reported, «Some sort of sorcerous barrier does lie ahead, lord. What may hide behind it I cannot say: it serves only to mask the sorceries on the farther side. But it is there.»

«That's so,» Panteles agreed. «No possible argument. There's a sorcerous fog bank, so to speak, dead ahead of us.»

Abivard glanced over at Tzikas. The renegade affected not to notice that he was being watched. I've told the truth, his posture said. I've always told the truth. Abivard wondered if he really grasped the difference between the posture of truth and truth itself.

For the time being that was beside the point. He asked Bozorg, «Can you penetrate the fog bank to see what lies behind it?»

«Can we? Perhaps, lord,» Bozorg said. «In fact, it is likely, as penetrating it tends toward a restoration of a natural state. The question of whether we should, however, remains.»

«Drop me into the Void if I can see why,» Abivard said. «It's there, and we need to find out what's on the other side of it before we send the army into what's liable to be danger. That's plain enough, isn't it?»

«Oh, it's plain enough,» Bozorg agreed, «but is it wise? For all we know, trying to penetrate the sorcerous fog, or succeeding in Penetrating it, may be the signal for the truly fearsome charm it conceals to spring to life.»

«I hadn't thought of that.» Abivard was certain his face looked as if he'd been sucking on a lemon. His stomach was as sour as if he'd been sucking on a lemon, too. «What are we supposed to do, then? Sit around here quivering and wait for the sorcerous fog bank to roll away? We're all liable to die of old age before that happens. If I were Maniakes, I'd make sure my wizards gave it a good long life, anyhow.»

Neither Bozorg or Panteles argued with him. Neither of them sprang into action to break down the sorcerous fog, either. When Abivard glared at them, Panteles said, «Eminent sir, we have here risks in going ahead and also risks in doing nothing. Weighing these risks is not easy.»

Abivard glanced over, not at Tzikas this time but at Romezan. The noble of the Seven Clans would have had only one answer when in doubt, go ahead, and worry afterward about what happens afterward. Romezan reckoned Abivard a man of excessive caution. This time the two of them were likely to be thinking along the same lines.

«If you can pierce that fog, pierce it,» Abivard told the two wizards. «The longer we stay stuck here, the farther ahead of us Maniakes gets. If he gets too far ahead, he escapes. We don't want that.»

Panteles bowed, a gesture of respect the Videssians gave to any superior. Bozorg didn't. It wasn't that he minded acknowledging Abivard as being far superior to him in rank; he'd done that before. But to do it now would have been to acknowledge that he thought Abivard was right, and he clearly didn't.

Whether he thought him right or not, though, he obeyed. As at the twisted canal, Panteles took the lead in the answering magic; being a Videssian, he was likely to be more familiar with the sort of sorcery Maniakes' mages employed than Bozorg was.

«We bless thee, Phos, lord with the great and good mind, by thy grace our protector,» Panteles intoned, «watchful beforehand that the great test of life may be decided in our favor.»

Along with the other Makuraners who understood the Videssian god's creed, Abivard bristled at hearing it. Panteles said, «We have a fog ahead. We need Phos' holy light to pierce it.»

Since Bozorg kept quiet, Abivard made himself stay calm, too. Panteles incanted steadily and then, with a word of command that might not have been Videssian at all-that hardly sounded like any human language-stabbed out his finger at what lay ahead. Abivard expected something splendid and showy, perhaps a ray of scarlet light shooting from his fingertip. Nothing of the sort happened, so it seemed the sort of gesture a father might have used to send an unruly son to his room after the boy had misbehaved.

Then Bozorg grunted and staggered as if someone had struck him a heavy blow, though no one stood near him. «No, by the God!» he exclaimed, and gestured with his left hand. «Fraortish eldest of all, lady Shivini, Gimillu, Narseh-come to my aid!»

He straightened and steadied. Panteles repeated Phos' creed. The two wizards shouted together, both crying out the same word that was not Videssian-it might not have been a word at all, not in the grammarians' sense of the term.

Abivard was watching Tzikas. The renegade started to sketch Phos' sun-circle but checked himself with the motion barely begun. Instead, his left hand twisted in the gesture Bozorg had used. Almost forgot whose camp you were in, didn't you? Abivard thought.

But Tzikas' return to the Makuraner fold did not seem to have been a trap or a snare. He'd warned of magic ahead, and magic ahead there had been. He'd done Abivard a service the general could hardly ignore. The last time they'd seen each other, Tzikas had done his best to kill him. That had been a more honest expression, no doubt, of how the renegade felt-not that Abivard had any great and abiding love for him, either.

The wizards, meanwhile, continued their magic. At length Abivard felt a sharp snap somewhere right in the middle of his head. By the way the soldiers around him exclaimed, he wasn't the only one. Afterward the world seemed a little clearer, a little brighter.

«We have pierced the sorcerous fog, revealing it for the phantasm it is,» Panteles declared.

«And what lies behind it?» Abivard demanded. «What other magic was it concealing?»

Panteles and Bozorg looked surprised. In defeating the first magic, they'd forgotten for a moment what came next. More hasty incanting followed. In a voice that suggested he had trouble believing what he was saying, Bozorg answered, «It does not seem to be concealing any other magic.»

«Bluff!» Romezan boomed. «All bluff.»

«A bluff that worked, too,» Abivard said unhappily. «We've wasted a lot of time trying to break through that screen of theirs. We were almost on their heels, but we're not, not anymore.»

«Let's go after them, then,» Romezan said. «The longer we stand around jabbering here, the farther away they get.»

«That's so,» Abivard said. «You don't suppose-» He glanced over at Tzikas, then shook his head. The renegade would not have come to the Makuraner army Abivard commanded for the sole purpose of delaying it. Maniakes could not have forced that from Tzikas, not when he knew Abivard was as eager as the Avtokrator to dispose of him… could he?

Romezan's gaze swung to Tzikas, too. «What do we do about him now?»

«Drop me into the Void if I know. He said there was magic being worked, and there was. He's no wizard or he would have tried to murder Maniakes himself instead of hiring someone to do it for him.» That made Tzikas bite his lip. Abivard ignored him, continuing: «He had no way to know the magic wasn't worse than what it turned out to be, and so he warned us. That counts for something.»

«Far as I'm concerned, it means we don't torture him-just hew off his head and have done,» Romezan said.

«Your generosity is remarkable,» Tzikas told him.

«What do you think we should do with you? Abivard asked, curious to hear what the renegade would say.

Without hesitation Tzikas replied, «Give me back my cavalry command. I did nothing to give anyone the idea I don't deserve it.»

«Nothing except slander me to Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase,» Abivard said. «Nothing except offer to slay me in single combat. Nothing except blunt my troops in battle and keep Maniakes from being wrecked. Nothing except-»

«I did what I had to do,» Tzikas said.

How slandering Abivard to Sharbaraz counted as something he had had to do, he did not explain. Abivard wondered if he knew. The most likely explanation was that aggrandizing Tzikas was indeed something Tzikas had to do. Whatever the explanation, though, it was beside the point at the moment. «You will not lead cavalry in my army,» Abivard said. «Until such time as I know you can be trusted, you are a prisoner, and you may thank the God or Phos or whomever you're worshiping on any particular day that I don't take Romezan's suggestion, which would without a doubt make my life easier.»

«I find no justice anywhere,» Tzikas said, melodrama throbbing in his voice.

«If you found justice, you would be short a head,» Abivard retorted. «If you're going to whine because you don't find as much mercy as you think you deserve, too bad.» He turned to some of his soldiers. «Seize him. Strip him and take away whatever weapons you find. Search carefully, search thoroughly, to make sure you find them all. Hold him. Do him no harm unless he tries to escape. If he tries, kill him.»

«Aye, lord,» the warriors said enthusiastically, and proceeded to give the command the most literal obedience imaginable, stripping Tzikas not only of his mail shirt but also, their pattings not satisfying them, of his undertunic and drawers as well, so that he stood before them clad in nothing more than irate dignity. Abivard groped for a word to describe his expression and finally found one in Videssian, for the imperials did more reveling in suffering for the sake of their faith than did Makuraners. Tzikas, now-Tzikas looked martyred.

For all their enthusiasm, the searchers found nothing out of the ordinary and suffered him to dress once more. Seeing that Tzikas was not immediately dangerous-save with his tongue, a weapon Abivard would have loved to cut out of him-the bulk of the army rode off in pursuit of Maniakes' force.

The Videssians, though, had used well the time their sorcerous smoke screen had bought them. «We aren't going to catch them,» Abivard said, bringing his horse up to trot beside Romezan's. «They're going to make their way down to Lyssaion and get away to fight next spring.»

He hoped Romezan would disagree with him. The noble from the Seven Clans was relentlessly optimistic, often believing something could be done long after a more staid man would have given up hope-and often being right, too. But now the wild boar of Makuran nodded. «I fear you're right, lord,» he said. «These cursed Videssians are getting to be harder to step on for good and all than so many cockroaches. They'll be back to bother us again.»

«We have driven them clean out of the land of the Thousand Cities,» Abivard said, as he had before. «That's something. Even the King of Kings will have to admit that's something.»

«The King of Kings won't have to do any such thing, and you know it as well as I do,» Romezan retorted, tossing his head so that his waxed mustaches flipped back and slapped against his cheeks. «He may, if his mood is good and the wind blows from the proper quarter, but to have to? Don't be stupid… lord.»

That came uncomfortably close to Abivard's own thoughts, so close that he took no offense at Romezan's blunt suggestion. It also sparked another thought in him: «My sister should long since have had her baby by now, and I should have had word, whatever the word was.»

Now Romezan sounded reassuring: «Had anything bad happened, lord, which the God forbid, rest assured you would have heard of that.»

«I won't say you're wrong,» Abivard answered. «Sharbaraz by now probably would be glad to get shut of any family ties to me. But if Denak had another girl-» If, despite the wizards' predictions, she'd had another girl, she would not get another chance for a boy.

Romezan's hand twisted in a gesture intended to turn aside an evil omen. That touched Abivard. The noble of the Seven Clans might well have resented his low birth and Denak's and not wanted the heir of the King of Kings to spring from their line. Abivard was glad none of that seemed to bother him.

«All right, if we can't catch up to the Videssians, what do we do? Romezan asked.

«Return in triumph to Mashiz, of course,» Abivard said, and laughed at the expression on Romezan's face. «What we really need to do is pull back out of this rough country into the flood-plain, where we'll have plenty of supplies. Not much to be gathered here.»

«That's so,» Romezan agreed. «Won't be so much down on the flat as there usually is, either, thanks to Maniakes. But you're right: more than here. One more question and then I shut up: have we won enough of a victory to satisfy the King of Kings?»

Sharbaraz had said that nothing less than complete and overwhelming defeat of the Videssians would be acceptable. Together, Abivard and Romezan had given him… something less than that. On the other hand, giving him the complete and overwhelming defeat of Maniakes probably would have frightened him. A general who could completely and overwhelmingly defeat a foreign foe might also, should the matter ever cross his mind, contemplate completely and overwhelmingly defeating the King of Kings. Maniakes had abandoned the land of the Thousand Cities under pressure from Abivard and Romezan. Would that satisfy Sharbaraz?

«We'll find out,» Abivard said without hope and without fear.

The messenger from Mashiz reached the army as it was coming down from the high ground in which the Tutub originated. Abivard was still marching as to war, with scouts well out ahead of his force. There was no telling for certain that Maniakes hadn't tried circling around through the semidesert scrub country for another go at the land of the Thousand Cities. Abivard didn't think the Avtokrator would attempt anything so foolhardy, but one thing he'd become sure of was that you never could tell with Maniakes.

Instead of a horde of Phos-worshiping Videssians, though, the scouts brought back the messenger, a skinny little pockmarked man mounted on a gelding much more handsome than he was. «Lord, I give you the words of Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase,» he said.

«For which I thank you,» Abivard replied, not wanting to say in public that the words of Sharbaraz King of Kings were nothing he looked forward to receiving.

With a flourish the messenger handed him the waterproof leather message tube. He popped it open. The sheet of parchment within was sealed with the lion of Makuran stamped into blood-red wax: Sharbaraz' insigne, sure enough. Abivard broke the seal with his thumbnail, let the fragments of wax fall to the ground, and unrolled the parchment.

As usual, Sharbaraz' titulature used up a good part of the sheet The scribe who had taken down the words of the King of Kings had a large, round hand that made the titles seem all the more impressive. Abivard skipped over them just the same, running a finger down the lines of fine calligraphy till he came to words that actually said something instead of serving no other function than advertising the magnificence of the King of Kings.

«Know that we have received your letter detailing the joint action you and Romezan son of Bizhan fought against the Videssian usurper Maniakes in the land of the Thousand Cities, the aforesaid Romezan having joined you in defiance of our orders,» Sharbaraz wrote. Abivard sighed. Once Sharbaraz got an idea, he never let go of it. Thus, Maniakes was still a usurper even though he was still solidly on the Videssian throne. Thus, too, the King of Kings was never going to forget-or let anyone else forget-that Romezan had disobeyed him.

«Know further that we are glad your common effort met with at least a modicum of success and grieved to learn that Tzikas, with his inborn Videssian treachery, presumed to challenge you to single combat, you having benefited him after his defection to our side,» Sharbaraz continued.

Abivard looked down at the parchment in pleased surprise. Had the King of Kings sounded so reasonable more often, he would have been a better ruler to serve.

He went on, «And know also we are happy you succeeded in defeating the vile Videssian sorcery applied to the canal in the aforementioned land of the Thousand Cities and that we desire full details of the said sorcery forwarded to Mashiz so that all our wizards may gain familiarity with it.» Abivard blinked. That wasn't just reasonable-it was downright sensible. He wondered if Sharbaraz was well.

«Having crossed the canal in despite of the said sorcery, you and Romezan son of Bizhan did well to defeat the usurper Maniakes in the subsequent battle, the traitor Tzikas again establishing himself as a vile Videssian dog biting the hand of those who nourished them upon his defection and making himself liable to ruthless, unhesitating extermination upon his recapture, should the aforementioned recapture occur.»

Abivard was tempted to summon Tzikas and read him that part of the letter just to watch his face. But the Videssian had again muddied the waters by warning of Maniakes' sorcery, even if it had been no more than a smoke screen.

«Know further,» Sharbaraz wrote, «that it is our desire to see the Videssians defeated or crushed or, those failing, at the very least driven from the land of the Thousand Cities so that they no longer infest the said land, ravaging and destroying both commerce and agriculture. Failure to accomplish this will result in our severest displeasure.»

It is accomplished, Abivard thought. He had, for once, done everything the King of Kings had demanded of him. He reveled in the sensation, knowing it was unlikely to recur any time soon. And even doing anything Sharbaraz demanded of him wouldn't keep his sovereign satisfied: if he could do that, who knew what else, what other enormities, he might be capable of?

Sharbaraz went on with more instructions, exhortations, and warnings. At the bottom of the sheet of parchment, almost as an afterthought, the King of Kings added, «Know also that the God has granted us a son, whom we have named Peroz in memory of our father, Peroz King of Kings, who was bom to us of our principal wife, Denak: your sister. Child and mother both appear healthy; the God grant that this should continue. Rejoicing reigns throughout the palace.»

Abivard read through the last few lines several times. They still said what they had the first time he'd read them. Had Sharbaraz King of Kings had any true familial feelings for him, he would have put that news at the head of the letter and let all the rest wait. Had he followed the advice of Yeliif and those like him, though, he probably wouldn't have let Abivard know of his unclehood at all. It was a compromise, then-not a good one, as far as Abivard was concerned, but not the worst, either.

Sharbaraz' messenger, who had ridden along with him while he read the letter from the King of Kings, now asked him, as messengers were trained to do, «Is there a reply, lord? If you write it, I will deliver it to the King of Kings; if you tell it to me, he will have it as you speak it.»

«Yes, there is a reply. I will speak it, if you don't mind,» Abivard said. The messenger nodded and looked attentive. «Tell Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase, I have driven Maniakes from the land of the Thousand Cities. And tell him I thank him for the other news as well.» He fumbled in his belt pouch, pulled out a Videssian goldpiece with Likinios Avtokrator's face on it, and handed it to the messenger. «You men get blamed too often for the bad news you bring, so here is a reward for good news.»

«Thank you, lord, and the God bless you for your kindness,» the messenger said. He repeated Abivard's message to make sure he had it right, then kicked his horse up into a trot and headed back toward Mashiz with the reply.

For his part, Abivard wheeled his horse and rode to the wagons that traveled with the army. When he saw Pashang, he waved. Abivard then called for Roshnani. When she came out of the covered rear area and sat beside Pashang, Abivard handed the letter to her.

She read through it rapidly. He could tell when she came to the last few sentences, because she took one hand off the parchment, made a fist, and slammed it down on her leg. «That's the best news we've had in years!» she exclaimed. «In years, I tell you.»

«What news is this, mistress?» Pashang asked. Roshnani told him of the birth of the new Peroz. The driver beamed. «That is good news.» He nodded to Abivard. «Congratulations, lord-or should I say uncle to the King of Kings to be?»

«Don't say that,» Abivard answered earnestly. «Don't even think it. If you do, Sharbaraz will get wind of it, and then we'll get to enjoy another winter at the palace, packed as full of delight and good times as the last two we had in Mashiz.»

Pashang's hand twisted in the gesture Makuraners used to turn aside evil omens. «I'll not say it again any time soon, lord, I promise you that.» He repeated the gesture; that first winter in Makuran had been far harder on him than on Abivard and his family.

Roshnani held out the letter to Abivard, who took it back from her. «The rest of this isn't so bad, either,» she said.

«I know,» he said, and lowering his voice so that only she and Pashang could hear, he added, «It's so good, in fact, I almost wonder whether Sharbaraz truly wrote it.»

His principal wife and the driver both smiled and nodded, as if they'd been thinking the same thing. Roshnani said, «Having a son and heir come into the world is liable to do wonders for anyone's disposition. I remember how you were after Varaz was born, for instance.»

«Oh?» Abivard said in a tone that might have sounded ominous to anyone who didn't know him and Roshnani well. «And how was I?»

«Dazed and pleased,» she answered; looking back on it, he decided she was probably right. Pointing to the parchment, she went on, «The man who wrote that letter is about as dazed and pleased as Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase, ever lets himself get.»

«You're right,» Abivard said in some surprise; he hadn't looked at it like that. Poor bastard, he thought. He would have said that to Roshnani, but he didn't want Pashang to hear it, so he kept quiet.

Peasants in loincloths labored in the fields around the Thousand Cities, some of them bringing in the crops, others busy repairing the canals the Videssians had wrecked. Abivard wondered, with a curiosity slightly greater than idle, how the peasants would have gone about repairing the half twist Maniakes' mages had given that one canal.

No one in the land of the Thousand Cities came rushing out from the cities or in from the fields to clasp his hand and congratulate him for what he had done. He hadn't expected anyone to do that, so he wasn't disappointed. Annies got no credit from the people in whose land they fought.

Khimillu, city governor of Qostabash, the leading town the Videssians had not sacked in the area, turned red under his swarthy skin when Abivard proposed garrisoning troops there for the winter. «This is an outrage!» he thundered in a fine, deep voice. «What with the war, we are poor. How are we to support these men gobbling our food and fondling our women?»

However impressive Khimillu's voice, he was a short, plump man, a native of the Thousand Cities. That let Abivard look down his nose at him. «If you don't want to feed them, I suppose they'll just have to go away,» he said, using a ploy that had proved effective in the land of the Thousand Cities. «Then, next winter, you can explain to Maniakes why you don't feel like feeding his troopers-if he hasn't burned this town down around your ears by then.»

But Khimillu, unlike some other city governors, was made of stern stuff despite his unprepossessing appearance. «You will not do such a thing. You cannot do such a thing,» he declared. Again unlike other city governors, he sounded unbluffably certain.

That being so, Abivard did not try to bluff him. Instead he said, «Maybe not. Here is what I can do, though: I can write to my brother-in-law, Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase, and tell him exactly how you are obstructing my purpose here. Have one of your scribes bring me pen and ink and parchment; the letter can be on its way inside the hour. Does that suit you better, Khimillu?»

If the city governor had gone red before, he went white now. Abivard would not have had the stomach to endanger all of Qostabash because of his obstinacy. Getting rid of an obstreperous official, though, wouldn't affect the rest of the town at all. «Very well, lord,» Khimillu said, suddenly remembering-or at least acknowledging-Abivard outranked him. «It shall be as you say, of course. I merely wanted to be certain you understood the predicament you face here.»

«Of course you did,» Abivard said. In another tone of voice that would have been polite agreement. As things were, he had all but called Khimillu a liar to his face. With some thousands of men at his back, he did not need to appease a city governor who cared nothing for those men once they had done him the services he had expected of them.

Blood rose once more to Khimillu's face. Red, white, red-he might have done for the colors of Makuran. Abivard wondered whether he should hire a taster to check his meals for as long as he stayed in Qostabash. In a tight voice the city governor said, «You could spread your men around through more cities hereabouts if the Videssians hadn't burned so many.»

«We don't work miracles,» Abivard answered. «All we do is the best we can. Your town is intact, and the Videssians have been driven away.»

«Small thanks to you,» Khimillu said. «For a very long time the Videssians were near, and you far away. Had they stretched out their hands toward Qostabash, it would have fallen like a date from a tree.»

«It may yet fall like a date from a tree,» Abivard said. The city governor's complaint had just enough truth in it to sting. Abivard had done his best to be everywhere at once between the Tutub and the Tib, but his best had not always been good enough. Still- «We are going to garrison soldiers here this winter, the better to carry on the war against Videssos when spring comes. If you try to keep us from doing that, I promise: you and this city will have cause to regret it.»

«That is an outrage!» Khimillu said, which was probably true I shall write to Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase, and inform him of what…»

His voice faded. Complaining to the King of Kings about what one of his generals was doing stood some chance of getting a city governor relief. Complaining to the King of Kings about what his brother-in-law was doing stood an excellent chance of getting a city governor transferred to some tiny village on the far side of the Sea of Salt, to the sort of place where no one cared if the taxes were five years in arrears because five years worth of taxes from it wouldn't have bought three mugs of wine at a decent tavern.

With the poorest of poor graces, Khimillu said, «Very well. Since I have no choice in the matter, let it be as you say.»

«The troops do have to stay somewhere,» Abivard said reasonably, «and Qostabash is the city that's suffered least in these parts.»

«And thus we shall suffer on account of your troops,» the governor returned. «I have trouble seeing the justice in that.» He threw his hands in the air, defeated. «But you are too strong for me. Aye, it shall be as you desire in all things, lord.»

Abivard rapidly discovered what he meant by that: not the wholehearted cooperation the words implied nor, really, cooperation of any sort. What Khimillu and the officials loyal to him did was stand aside and refrain from actively interfering with Abivard. Beyond that they did their best to pretend that neither he nor the soldiers existed. If that was how they viewed granting his desires in all things, he shuddered to think what would have happened had they opposed him.

«We should have loosed Khimillu against the Videssians,» Abivard told Roshnani after they and their children had been installed in some small, not very comfortable rooms a good distance from the city governor's palatial residence. «He would have made them flee by irking them too much for them to stay.» He chuckled at his own conceit.

«They've been irksome themselves lately,» she said, thumping at a lumpy cushion to try to beat it into some semblance of comfort. When she leaned back against it, she frowned and punched it some more. At last satisfied, she went on, «And speaking of irksome, what do you aim to do about Tzikas?»

«Drop me into the Void if I know what to do with him,» Abivard said, adding, «Or what to do to him,» a moment later. «That last letter from the King of Kings seems to give me free rein, but if the traitor hadn't escaped from Maniakes and come to us, who knows how long we might have been entangled with the Videssians' magic? I do need to remember that, I suppose.»

«But the Videssians' magic was only that screen, with nothing behind it,» Roshnani said.

«Tzikas couldn't have known that… I don't think.» Abivard drummed his fingers on his thigh. «The trouble is, if I leave Tzikas to his own devices, in two weeks' time he'll be writing to Sharbaraz, telling him what a wretch I am. Khimillu has a sense of restraint; Tzikas has never heard of one.»

«I can't say you're wrong about that, and I wouldn't try,» his principal wife said. «You still haven't answered my question: what are you going to do about him?»

«I don't know,» Abivard admitted. «On the one hand, I'd like to be rid of him once for all so I wouldn't have to worry about him anymore. But I keep thinking he might be useful against Maniakes, and so I hold off from killing him.»

«Maniakes evidently thought the same thing in reverse, or he would have killed Tzikas after you arranged to give him to the Avtokrator,» Roshnani said.

«Maniakes got some use out of the traitor,» Abivard said resentfully. «If it hadn't been for Tzikas, we would have crushed the Videssians in the battle on the ridge.» He checked himself. «But to be honest, we got a couple of years of decent use out of him before he decided to try to convince the King of Kings he could do everything better than I can.»

«And the Videssians got good use from him before that, when he sat at Amorion and held us away from the Arandos valley,» Roshnani said.

«But he was doing that for himself more than for Genesios or Maniakes.» Abivard laughed. «Tzikas has done more for-and to-both sides here than anyone else in the whole war. Nobody can possibly trust him now, but that doesn't mean he has no value.»

«If you're going to use him against the Videssians, how do you propose to go about it?» Roshnani asked.

«I don't know that, either, not right now,» Abivard admitted. All I aim to do is keep him alive-however much I don't like the idea-keep him under my control, and wait and see what sorts of chances I get, if I get any. In my place, what would you do?»

«Kill him,» Roshnani said at once. «Kill him now and then write to tell the King of Kings what you've done. If Sharbaraz likes it-and after his latest letter he might-fine. If he doesn't like it, well, not even the King of Kings can order a man back from the dead.»

That was so. Abivard's chuckle came out wry. «I wonder what Maniakes would say if he found out the chief marshal of Makuran had a wife who was more ruthless than he.»

Roshnani smiled. «He might not be surprised. The Videssians give their women freer rein in more things than we do-why not in ruthlessness, too?» She looked thoughtful. «For that matter, who's to say Maniakes' wife who is also his cousin isn't more ruthless than he ever dreamed of being?»

«Now, there's an interesting idea,» Abivard said. «Maybe one day, if we're ever at peace with Videssos and if Maniakes is still on his throne, you and his Lysia can sit down and compare what the two of you did to make each other's lives miserable during the war.»

«Maybe we can,» Roshnani replied. Abivard had meant it as a joke, but she took him seriously. After a moment he decided she had-or might have had-reason to do so. She went on, «Speaking of ruthlessness, I meant what I said about the Videssian traitor. I'd sooner find a scorpion in my shoe than him on my side.»

Abivard spoke in sudden decision. «You're right, by the God. He's stung me too often, too. I've held back because I've thought of the use I could get from him, but I'll never feel safe with him still around to cook up schemes against me.»

«Checking you at the battle where you should have crushed Maniakes should weigh in the scales, too,» Roshnani said.

«Checking me? He came too close to killing me,» Abivard said. «That's the last time he'll thwart me, though, by the God.» He went to the door of the apartment and ordered the sentry to summon a couple of soldiers who had distinguished themselves in the summer's fighting. When they arrived, he gave them their orders. Their smiles were all glowing eyes and sharp teeth. They drew their swords and hurried away.

He had a servant fetch a jar of wine, with which he intended to celebrate Tzikas' premature but not untimely demise. But when the soldiers returned to give him their report, they had the look of dogs that had seen a meaty bone between the boards of a fence but hadn't been able to squeeze through and seize the morsel. One of them said, «We found out he has leave to go walking through the streets of Qostabash so long as he returns to his quarters by sunset. He's not quite an ordinary prisoner, the guards told me.» His expression said more clearly than words what he thought of that

«The guard is right, and the fault is mine,» Abivard said. «I give you leave to look for him in the city and kill him wherever you happen to find him. Or if that doesn't suit you, wait till sunset and put an end to him then.»

«If it's all the same to you, lord, we'll do that,» the soldier said. «I'm just a farm boy and not used to having so many people around all the time. I might kill the wrong one by mistake, and that would be a shame.» His comrade nodded. Abivard shrugged.

But Tzikas did not return to his quarters when the sun went down. When he didn't, Abivard sent soldiers-farm boys and others-through the bazaars and brothels of Qostabash looking for him. They did not find him. They did find a horse dealer who had sold him-or at least had sold someone who spoke the Makuraner language with a lisping accent-a horse.

«Drop me into the Void!» Abivard shouted when that news reached him. «The rascal saw his head going down on the block, and now he's gone and absconded-and he has most of the day's start on us, too.»

Romezan was there to hear the report, too. «Don't take it too hard, lord,» he said. «We'll run the son of a whore to earth; you see if we don't. Besides, where is he going to go?»

That was a good question. As Abivard thought about it, he began to calm down. «He can't very well run off to Maniakes' army, now, can he? Not anymore he can't, not with the Videssians gone to Lyssaion and probably back to Videssos the city by sea already. And if he doesn't run off to the Videssians, we'll hunt him down.»

«You see?» Romezan said. «It's not so bad.» He paused and fiddled with one spike of his mustache. «Pretty slick piece of work, though, wasn't it? Him figuring out the exact right time to slide away, I mean.»

«Slick is right,» Abivard said, angry at himself. «He never should have had the chance… but I did trust him, oh, a quarter of the way, because the warning he gave us was a real one.» He paused. «Or I thought it was a real one. Still, the magical screen the Videssians had set up was just that-a screen, nothing more But it delayed us almost as much as it would have if it had had deadly sorcery concealed behind it. We always thought Tzikas didn't know it was only a screen. But what if he did? What if Maniakes sent him out to make us waste as much time as he possibly could and help the Videssian army get away?»

«If he did that,» Romezan said, «if he did anything like that, we don't handle him ourselves when we catch him. We send him back to Mashiz in chains, under heavy guard, and let Sharbaraz' torturers take care of him a little at a time. That's what he pays them for.»

«Most of the time I'd fight shy of giving anyone over to the torturers,» Abivard said. «For Tzikas, especially if he did that, I'd make an exception.»

«I should hope so,» Romezan replied. «You're too soft sometimes, if you don't mind my saying so. If I had to bet, I'd say it came from hauling a woman all over the landscape. She probably thinks it's a shame to see blood spilled, doesn't she?»

Abivard didn't answer, convincing Romezan of his own right-ness. The reason Abivard didn't answer, though, was that he was having to do everything he could to keep from laughing in his lieutenant's face. Romezan's preconceptions had led him to a conclusion exactly opposite the truth.

But that wouldn't matter, either. However Abivard had reached his decision, he wanted Tzikas dead now. He offered a good-sized reward for the return of the renegade alive and an even larger one for his head, so long as it was in recognizable condition.

When morning came, he sent riders out to the south and east after Tzikas. He also had dogs brought into the Videssian's quarters to take his scent and then turned loose to hunt him down wherever he might be. The dogs, however, lost the trail after the time when Tzikas bought his horse; not enough of his scent had clung to the ground for them to follow it.

The human hunters had no better luck. «Why couldn't you have turned bloodthirsty a day earlier than you did?» Abivard demanded of Roshnani.

«Why couldn't you?» she returned, effectively shutting him up.

Every day that went by the searchers spread their nets wider. Tzikas did not get caught in those nets, though. Abivard hoped he'd perished from bandits or robbers or the rigor of his flight. If he ever did turn up in Videssos again, he was certain to be trouble.