Videssos Cycle, Volume 2 (90 page)

“Anathema to those who spring from Vaspurakan, the root-stock of every impurity!” he screamed. “May they be cast into Skotos’ outer darkness for their wicked inspirer to devour! They are the worst of all mankind, howling like wild dogs against our correct faith—hardhearted, stiff-necked, vain, and insane!”

Marcus pushed his way to the very front of the audience. “Rubbish!” he shouted, as loud as he could.

He heard gasps all around him. Zemarkhos’ mouth was open for his next pronouncement. It hung foolishly for a moment as the priest gaped; it had been years since anyone opposed him. Then he waved to his guards. “Kill me this blasphemous oaf.” Grinning, they stepped forward to obey.

“Yes, send your dogs to do your work,” the Roman jeered. “Too stupid to learn, are you? Look what happened to you when you tried that with your precious Vaspur. You’re a scrawny, murderous fraud and you deserve every scar you have.”

Several people near Scaurus scrambled away, afraid they might somehow be tainted by his sacrilege. Vaspur snarled. The guards, no longer grinning, hefted their spears in anger. The tribune set his hand to
the hilt of his sword, but kept his eyes riveted on Zemarkhos. Confident in his own power, the priest gestured to his men again. They growled, but gave way.

“Very well, madman, let it be as you wish; you are as fit a subject as my other for the proof of Phos’ power within me.” Zemarkhos’ eyes glittered with consuming hunger. As he measured Scaurus, his stare reminded the tribune of that of an old eagle, ready to stoop.

Then the zealot priest’s eyebrows twitched, surprise returning humanity to his expression. “I know you,” he rasped. “You are one of the barbarians who preferred the company of Vaspurakaners to my exposition of the truth. Your repentance will come late, but none the less certain for that.”

“Of course I’d sooner have guested with them than with you. They’re whole men, not twisted, venomous fanatics, ‘hardhearted, stiff-necked, vain, and insane!’ ” Marcus quoted with insulting relish. The crowd gasped again; Zemarkhos jerked as if stung.

“ ‘Whole men,’ is it?” he returned. His stabbing finger darted at the Vaspurakaners he had slain. “There they lie, a mort of them, given over to death by Phos’ just judgment.”

“Horseshit. Any evil wizard could work the same, without taking Phos’ mantle for himself in the bargain.” The tribune sneered. “Phos’ power! What nonsense! If you weren’t so damned cruel, Zemarkhos, you’d be a joke, and a lame one at that. Go on, show everyone here Phos’ power—if it comes through you, strike
me
dead with it.”

“No need to beg,” Zemarkhos said, his voice an eager whisper. “I will give you what you want.” He did not move, but seemed nonetheless to grow taller behind the podium. Marcus could all but see the power he was summoning to himself. His eyes were two leaping back flames; his whole body quivered as he aimed his dart of malice.

His arm shot toward the tribune. Scaurus stumbled under the immaterial blow and wished for his
scutum
to hold up against it. His ears roared; his sight grew dark; agony filled his mind like the kiss of molten lead. He bit his lip till he tasted blood. Dimly he heard Zemarkhos’ cackle of cruel, vaunting laughter.

But he held on to his sword, though he kept it in its sheath. Zemarkhos’ fanatic zeal powered his magic to a strength to match any Marcus
had seen since he came to Videssos, but the druids’ charms were equal to it. “You’ll have to do better than that,” he called to Zemarkhos, and stood straight once more.

The hatred on the priest’s face was frightening, making him into something hardly human. He gathered all his might within him and loosed it in a single blast of will. This time, though, the Gallic blade’s ward spells were already alive and easily turned aside the thrust. Scaurus barely flinched.

The tribune stretched his mouth into a grin. “I don’t think Phos is paying much attention to you,” he said. “Try again—maybe he’s doing something important instead.”

The crowd muttered at his effrontery, but also at Zemarkhos’ failure. The priest readied another curse, but Marcus saw in his eyes the beginning of doubt, sorcery’s fatal foe. The third attack was the weakest; the tribune felt vague discomfort, but did not show it.

“There—do you see?” he shouted to the folk around him. “This old vulture tells lies with every breath he takes!” He forbore to mention that he would have been lying dead in the dirt without his sword’s unseen protection.

“You have sold your soul to Skotos and stand under his shield!” Zemarkhos shrieked, his voice cracking. His harsh features were greasy with sweat; he panted like a soldier after an all-day battle.

That was a cry to get Scaurus mobbed, but he was ready for it. “Hear the desperate liar, grabbing at straws! Do you not teach, Zemarkhos, that Phos will beat Skotos in the end? Or are you a Balancer all of a sudden, one of those Khatrisher heretics who do not profess that good is stronger than evil?”

At another time, the expression the priest wore might have been funny. He had thrown charges of heresy past counting, but never expected to catch one, or to see his very piety discredited. “Kill him!” he started to scream to his guardsmen, but a cabbage flew out of the crowd and caught him in the side of the head, sending him sprawling off the podium. Not all of Amorion had enjoyed living under his religious tyranny.

Nor had all hated it, either; the cabbage-flinger went down with a shriek as the man in front of him whirled and stabbed him in the side.
He kicked savagely at the man he had knifed, then fell himself as the woman beside him smashed a clay water jug over his head.

“Dig up Zemarkhos’ bones!” she screamed—the Videssian cry for riot. A hundred voices took up the call. A hundred more rose in horror, shouting, “Blasphemers! Heretic lovers!”

Zemarkhos scrambled to his feet. Two men rushed him, one swinging a chunk of firewood, the other barehanded. Growling horribly, Vaspur leaped for the first man’s throat. He threw up his arms to protect himself. Vaspur tore them to the bone; the man dropped his club and fled, dripping blood. One of the priest’s guards speared the unarmed man. He stared in amazement at the point in his belly, crumpled, and fell.

“Murderer! See the murderer!” that same woman cried. Her voice was loud and coarse as a donkey’s bray and rang through the square. Before the guard could pull his pike free, she led the charge at him. He went down and did not get up. “Dig up Zemar—” Her cry was abruptly cut off as another guard reversed his spear and clubbed her with it. A moment later an uprooted paving stone dashed out his brains.

“Death to those who mock the Defender!” a wild-eyed youth shouted, and was fool enough to punch Marcus in his ironclad ribs. The tribune heard knuckles break. The young man howled. The tribune kicked him in the stomach before he could think of something worse to do; the youth folded up like a fan.

Armed, armored, and well-trained in the midst of rioting civilians, Scaurus enjoyed a tremendous edge. He swung his sword in great arcs, not so much to strike as to keep a little space around him. The sight of a yard of edged steel in the hands of someone who knew how to use it made even the most fiery zealot think twice. The tribune began slipping through the mob toward Gaius Philippus.

His worst worry was Zemarkhos’ guardsmen, but the three or four of them still standing had all they could do holding the rioters back from their master. His curses now rained on the crowd that had followed him so long. But in civil strife as in battle, uproused passion went far to protect against magic. And as one intended victim after another did not drop, the priest’s assurance failed him. He turned and fled, robe flapping about his shanks as he forced them into a hobbling run.

A fusillade of stones and rubbish followed him. Several missiles landed; he staggered and went to one knee. More struck the dog Vaspur. It howled and leaped as far as the chain Zemarkhos still held would let it. When the chain went taut the dog fell heavily, half-throttled.

Its snarl sent everyone close by scrambling back. The closest target for its fury was its master. Zemarkhos screamed “No!” as Vaspur sprang for him. The dog’s teeth tore at his throat. The scream rose higher and shriller for a moment, then bubbled away to silence.

Zemarkhos’ backers cried out in horror, but his foes raised a great hurrah. His death did nothing to end the riot. By then, everyone in the square had been hit from behind at least once and struck back blindly, keeping fights going and starting new ones. Some went through the crowd with more purpose, looking for old enemies to pay back.

The mob also began to realize no one would keep them from plundering whatever traders whose goods took their fancy. The first merchant’s stall went over with a crash. Friends and foes of Zemarkhos forgot their quarrel and looted it together.

“Phos and no quarter!” bellowed a squat, brawny man in a butcher’s leather apron. He rampaged through the crowd, heavy fists churning. Marcus wondered whose side he was on, and wondered if he knew himself.

Someone bludgeoned the tribune. His helmet took the worst of the blow, but he still staggered. He whirled by reflex and felt his sword bite. His attacker groaned, fell, and was trampled. He never did see the fellow.

Across the plaza, a disappointed looter cursed because all of a ring seller’s best opals had already been stolen before he got a chance at them. “It’s not fair!” he yelled, paying no attention to the jeweler who lay unconscious on the ground a few feet away, a thin stream of blood trickling down the side of his face.

“Cheer up,” another man said. “There’s bound to be better stuff in the merchants’ tent city outside of town.”

“You’re right!” the first rioter exclaimed. “And most of those buggers are heretics or out-and-out heathens, so they must be fair game.” He had been howling against Zemarkhos, but only because his brother-in-law had fallen victim to the priest. Now he filled his lungs and shouted, “Let’s
clean out those rich whoresons who come here just to cheat us every year!”

The cheers were like the baying of wolves. Brandishing torches and makeshift weapons, the mob streamed north through Amorion’s streets, hot for loot. Most houses were slammed tight against the riot, but the tide of excitement swept more than a few men from them.

Marcus fought his way across the current toward Gaius Philippus. The veteran’s
gladius
was in his scarred fist; his feet dangled outside the stirrups. Just before the tribune made it to him, a rioter tried to steal the roan he was leading. Disdaining the sword, the centurion raked out with his left foot. The nailed soles of his
caligae
shredded the Videssian’s back. The man howled like a whipped dog; when he turned to run, Gaius Philippus sped him along with a well-aimed toe to the fundament.

As Scaurus mounted, the senior centurion scowled at him. He grumbled, “You could have waited a bit before you started the brawl. I might have had time for a quick one against the wall with that tart, but as soon as the ruction got going she ran off to lift whatever wasn’t nailed down. Easier than friking, I suppose.”

“Go howl.” Marcus booted his horse forward. He took off his crested helmet and threw away his cape, trying to look as little like the man who had set Amorion aboil as he could.

It helped, but not as much as he wanted. “Pawn of Skotos!” an old bald man yelled, rushing at him with looted dagger in hand. But the tribune’s horse was a trained war-beast from the imperial stables. It reared and struck out with iron-shod hooves. The man toppled, his knife flying through the air.

“This wretched slug I’m on would kill itself if it tried that,” Gaius Philippus said envyingly. The gray was not at risk; one display was enough to make the rioters keep their distance. Undisturbed for the moment, the Romans rode the mob’s current north.

“What now?” the senior centurion asked, shouting to be heard.

“Back to Nakoleia?”

“I suppose so,” Marcus said, but he still hesitated. “I do wish, though, I had a token to prove Zemarkhos dead.”

“What are you going to do, go back and take his head so you can toss it at Thorisin’s feet the way Avshar gave you Mavrikios’?” When Scaurus
did not answer at once, Gaius Philippus turned astonished eyes on him. “By the gods, you’re thinking of it!”

“Yes, I’m thinking of it,” the tribune said heavily. “After all this, I’m damned if I’ll leave Gavras any excuse for cheating me. I have to be sure he can’t.”

“He can if he wants to, anyway—that’s what being Emperor is all about. All going back’ll do is get you killed to no purpose.” Gaius Philippus paused a moment. “Now you listen to me and see if I don’t argue like some fool Greek sophist—shame Gorgidas isn’t here to give me the horselaugh.”

“Go on.”

“All right, then. Without Zemarkhos, do you think this town can hold off the Yezda long? What’ll
they
be doing? Sitting back with their thumbs up their arses? Not bloody likely. And even Thorisin can’t help noticing them being here instead of that maniac in a blue robe.”

“You’re not wrong,” Marcus had to admit. “Gavras won’t thank us for giving them Amorion, though.”

“Then why didn’t he give
you
an army, to keep them out of it? You know the answer to that as well as I do.” Gaius Philippus drew the edge of his hand across his throat. “You’ve done what he told you to; he can’t complain over what happens next.”

“Of course he can; you just showed me that yourself.” But Marcus realized Gaius Philippus was right. Zemarkhos was done, and without troops the tribune could not help Amorion. “Very well, you have me. Let’s get out while we can.”

“Now you’re talking.” Gaius Philppus bullied a resentful lope out of his horse and slapped its bony flank when it tried to slack off. “Not this time, you don’t.” Soon he and Marcus were near the front of the mob. The centurion grinned maliciously at the rioters around them. “They’d best enjoy their loot while they can. The Yezda’ll swarm down on ’em like flies on rotten meat.”

“So they will.” Marcus swore in sudden consternation. “And one of the ways they’ll come swarming is out of the north, straight down the path we need to use.”