The Legion of Videssos (16 page)

Denizli realized he would get no backing from his companions, who were all relieved Varatesh had not chosen them. He trotted clumsily away, pausing once or twice to rub at his blistering heels.

Donkey, Varatesh thought. But then, it seemed even Avshar’s wisdom had its limits. When he had time, he would have to ponder that.

The man he had clubbed moaned and tried to roll over. Varatesh hit him again, a precisely calculated blow delivered without passion. It would not do to strike too hard; he remembered the sentry in his father’s clan. No, no, he told himself for the thousandth time, the fellow had only been knocked cold. Still, he was more careful now.

Hoofbeats in the darkness heralded Kubad’s approach. Denizli with him looked happier on horseback. At least he had the wit to remount, Varatesh thought. Kubad looked around the campfire with interest. “Worked, did it?” he remarked economically. “Can we plunder them?”

“No.”

“Pity.” Of the five Varatesh had with him, Kubad was far the best. He slid down from his horse, walked to the side of his chief, who was still standing over the red-haired man. “This the one the wizard wants?”

“Yes. Get one of the remounts over here; we’ll tie him aboard.” They slung the unconscious man over the horse’s back like a hunting trophy, bound his hands and feet beneath the beast’s belly. Varatesh took his sword.

“How long is your charm good for?” Kubad asked. “You don’t want to butcher these sheep—” Denizli had been talking, then. “—so likely they’ll come after us when they wake. And there’s more o’ them than there is of us.”

“We’ll have a day’s start, from what I was told. That should be plenty. Smell the air—the night’s clear, aye, but rain’s coming before long. What trail will they follow?”

In the crimson glow of the campfire, Kubad’s smile seemed dipped in blood.

Viridovix awoke to nightmare. The driving pain in his head left him queasy and weak, and when his eyes came open he groaned and squinched them shut again. He was facing directly into the rising sun, whose brilliance sent new needles of agony drilling into his brain. Worse even than that was the work of some malevolent sorcerer, who had reversed sky and horizon and set both of them bobbing like a bowl of calf’s-foot jelly. His sensitive stomach heaved. Only when he tried to reach up to shield his face from the sun did he discover his hands were tied.

His moan alerted his takers to his returning awareness. Someone said something in the plains speech. The jouncing stopped. Very carefully, Viridovix opened one eye. The world was steady, but still upside down. He let his head hang loosely. Gray-brown dirt swooped toward him; a sharp stem of grass poked up to within a couple of inches from his forehead. There was a brown, shaggy-haired leg on either side of him. I’m on a horse, he told himself, pleased he could think at all.

After more talk in the Khamorth tongue, one of the nomads came over to him. In his undignified posture, Viridovix could only see the man from the thighs down. That was enough to send alarm shooting through him, for alongside a saber the plainsman bore the Gaul’s sword.

Viridovix had learned only a few words of the plains language, none of them polite. He used one now, his voice a ghastly croak. Almost instantly he realized his rashness; his captor could enjoy revenge at leisure. He tried to gather his wits so he could take a blow manfully, if nothing else.

But the nomad only laughed, and there seemed to be no menace under the mirth. “I will cut you loose, yes?” he said in good Videssian, with only a trace of his people’s guttural accent. His voice was a surprisingly light tenor, a young man’s voice. He went on, “Please do not plan any folly. There are two men with bows covering you. I ask again, shall I cut you down?”

“Aye, an you will.” The Celt saw no point in refusing; trussed as he was, he could do nothing, even without the pounding in his head. The Khamorth bent beneath the horse’s
barrel. His dagger bit through the rawhide thongs that lashed Viridovix’ wrist to his ankles.

The Gaul tumbled to the ground, limp as a sack of meal. His nausea abruptly overwhelmed him. As he spewed, the Khamorth held his head so he would not foul himself, then gave him water to clean his mouth. The kindness was in its way more frightening than brutality would have been. To brutality, at least, he would have known how to respond.

After two or three tries he managed to sit. He studied his captor as best he could, though his vision was still blurred and went double on and off. The Khamorth
was
young, likely less than thirty, though the great bushy beard he wore after his people’s custom helped obscure his youth. He was a bit taller than most plainsmen and carried himself like one used to leading. His eyes, though, were strange; even when he looked straight at Viridovix, they seemed far away, peering at something only he could see.

Fighting dizziness, the Gaul turned his head to see what allies the nomad had. As promised, two plainsmen had nocked arrows in their short bows. One drew his shaft back a few inches when Viridovix’ eyes met his. He had a most unpleasant smile.

“Hold, Denizli!” the chief said in Videssian for the Gaul’s benefit, then repeated the command in his own speech. Denizli scowled, but did as he was told.

There were three more Khamorth simply relaxing on their horses. They watched Viridovix as they might a wildcat they had ridden down, a dangerous beast who should get no chance to use his fangs. The lot of them were typical enough plainsmen, if on the hard-bitten side. It was their leader who put trepidation in the Celt’s heart, the more so because he did not seem to belong on the steppe. He had more depth than his followers and, with his beard trimmed, would not have been out of place at the imperial court. Finesse, thought Viridovix, that was the word.

In his pain and confusion the Gaul took a bit of time to notice that none of his comrades had been taken. When he did, he burst out, “What ha’ ye done wi’ my mates, y’blackhearted omadhaun?”

The nomad chieftain frowned a moment; as was often true, Viridovix’ brogue thickened in times of stress. But when he
understood, the Khamorth laughed and spread his empty hands. “Nothing at all.”

Oddly, Viridovix believed him. He was sure any of the other five would have delighted in the killing, but not this man. “What is it you want o’ me, then?” the Celt asked, not reassured.

The answer, though, was mild enough. “For now, let me wash your head, so your cuts do not fester.” Varatesh poured some kavass onto a scrap of wool, then knelt by Viridovix. The Celt winced when the stinging stuff touched his cut and swollen scalp, but the nomad daubed away as gently as Gorgidas might have done. “I am called Varatesh, by the way,” he remarked.

“I’d be lying if I said I was pleased to make your acquaintance,” the Gaul told him. Varatesh smiled and nodded, quite kindly—or so it would have seemed had Viridovix not been his prisoner.

The nomad’s body screened him from one of the archers. As if his weight were too much for him, Viridovix slumped against Varatesh’s shoulder—and then grappled for the longsword at the plainsman’s belt. Only then did he realize how hurt and fuddled he was; Varatesh twisted away and bounced to his feet before the Celt’s move was well begun.

The nomad shouted for his bowmen not to fire. He looked down at Viridovix, and there was no kindness on his handsome face now. With chilling deliberation, he kicked the Gaul in the point of the elbow. “Play no games with me,” he said, still quiet-voiced.

Viridovix barely heard; sheets of red and black fire were passing in front of his eyes. The pain in his head, anguish a moment before, receded to a dull, all but friendly ache. Varatesh might not slaughter for the sport of it, but that only made his torments worse when they came.

“I doubt whether Avshar cares what shape you are in when he meets you,” the Khamorth said. He paused, waiting to see how Viridovix met the name.

“Och, be damned to you and him both,” the Gaul said, trying not to show the chill he felt. He blustered, “My comrades’ll be catching up with you long before you can bring me to him.” He had no idea how true that was; but if Varatesh had let them live, he might as well worry about them.

One of the other nomads laughed. “Hush, Kubad,” Varatesh said, then turned back to Viridovix. “They’re welcome to try,” he went on placidly. “In fact, I wish them luck.”

When the Celt could stand, his captors put him on one of their remounts. They took no chances on his escape, tying his feet under the horse and his hands behind him; the plainsman called Kubad guided his mount on a lead. Trying to gain more freedom of any sort, he protested, “At least be letting me have hold of the reins. What if I slip off?” He meant it; he felt anything but well.

Kubad had enough Videssian to answer him. “Then you drag.” Viridovix gave up.

As the nomads rode north over the plains, the Gaul began to see that, by comparison, his own party had been lazing along. The steppe ponies trotted on and on, tireless as if driven by some clockwork. Despite the wide detour the plainsmen took round the herds of some clan, they covered nearly as much ground in one day as Viridovix was used to doing in two.

The only stops they made were to answer nature’s calls; Viridovix found it hard to relieve himself with an arrow aimed at his midriff. The Khamorth ate in the saddle, gnawing on barklike sun-dried strips of beef and lamb. They did not pause to feed their prisoner, but halfway through the day Varatesh, courteous as if he’d never killed a man, held a flask of kavass to Viridovix’ lips. He drank, both from thirst and in an effort to dull the pounding hurt in his head. The fermented milk did not help much.

Dirty-gray clouds like the underbellies of so many sheep came scudding up out of the south as the afternoon wore to a close. Kubad said something in his own language to Varatesh, who bobbed his head as if acknowledging a compliment. The wind grew brisker and began to feel damp.

The Khamorth leader picked a small creek with an overhanging bank as a campsite. “Rain tonight,” he told Viridovix, “but we sleep dry here—unless the stream rises. I do not think it will.”

“And what if it does?” The Gaul, hurt and also exhausted from staying in the saddle without being able to use his hands, did not really care, but tried to discommode Varatesh in any small way he could.

He failed. “Then we move,” the nomad answered, busying himself with the fire. It was tiny and smokeless, not one to advertise their presence. This time the Khamorth shared their travelers’ fare with Viridovix, untying him so he could eat, but always watching him so closely he could do nothing more. When he was through Varatesh bound him once more, testing each knot so carefully that the Gaul hated him for his thoroughness.

The plainsmen drew straw for their watches; Viridovix gathered himself to do something—he knew not what—as soon as he saw the chance. But his body betrayed him. Despite the misery in his head, despite the discomfort of having his arms tied behind his back, he yielded to sleep almost at once.

The gentle plashing of rain in the rivulet a few feet away woke him some hours later; Denizli, who had drawn third watch, was on sentry go. Varatesh had chosen his campsite perfectly. The projecting streambank left it snug and dry, just as he had said. Actually, the Celt had not doubted him; even in his cruelty, the outlaw chief was competent.

Viridovix rolled out toward the rain. Denizli growled something threatening in his own tongue and hefted his bow. “Sure and I just want to soak my puir battered noddle,” the Celt said, but Denizli only grunted and lifted the bow a couple of inches further.

Swearing at his luck, Viridovix perforce drew back. “Arse-licking eunuch,” he said. He knew he was gambling, but beyond grunting again Denizli did not respond. Here, at least, was one nomad who had no Videssian. The Gaul cursed him for several minutes, a profane stew of the imperial tongue, Latin, and Celtic. Feelings slightly eased, he tried to find some tolerable position in which to go back to sleep. The rain, he thought, looked to be lasting a while.

Gorgidas stirred and grumbled as a raindrop splashed against his cheek. Another coldly kissed his ear, a third spattered off his left eyelid. He scrabbled at his bedroll, trying to pull it over his head without really rousing. Before he could, half a dozen more drops landed on his face, leaving him irretrievably awake. “By the dog,” he muttered in Greek, an oath
of annoyance. The weather had seemed good enough when he fell asleep.

He winced as he sat, for his head gave a savage twinge. He wished for raw cabbage to deal with his hangover, but wondered what he had done to deserve one. Kavass was potent, aye, but the little he’d had at the evening meal should not have left him as crapulent as this.

Others were waking, too, and groaning and cursing in such a way that the Greek guessed they felt no better than he. Only when he began to look around did he notice the campfire had gone out. He frowned. The ground, as yet, was barely damp—why were only ashes left of the good-sized blaze they’d set not long before?

Agathias Psoes had the same thought. “What’s wrong with you sheeps’ heads?” he shouted to his troopers. “Can’t you even keep a bloody fire going?” Their replies were mumbles; the evidence of their failure was only too plain.

“How many Khamorth does it take to start a fire?” Arigh asked rhetorically, and then answered his own question: “Ten—one gathers the brushwood while the other nine try to figure out what to do next.”

“Heh, heh.” Psoes barked a short fragment of laugh, enough for politeness’ sake. Though he was not of Khamorth blood himself, most of his squad was, and he naturally took their part when an outsider taunted them.

Pikridios Goudeles, on the other hand, found the Arshaum’s gibe funny, chuckling quietly for nearly a minute. Gorgidas allowed himself a wry smile; Arigh took every chance, it seemed, to twit his people’s eastern neighbors on the steppe.

It was then that Gorgidas realized Viridovix’ booming laugh had failed to ring out at his friend’s joke. Was the accursed Gaul still sleeping? Gorgidas peered through the darkness and the raindrops, which were coming thicker now. He could not see the Celt. “Viridovix?” he called.