its flare ... but one of the lessons he'd learned after close to half a lifetime on the throne was the chasm that sometimes yawned between
His head went rapidly back and forth from one side of the valley to the other. 'Where are they?' he demanded, not of anyone in particular but of the world at large.
As if that had been a cue, martial music rang out in the distance. Soldiers in the imperial army cheered like men possessed; the Thanasioi stared about in sudden confusion and alarm. Down into the valley from left and right rode fresh regiments of horsemen in line. 'Krispos!' they cried as they bent their bows.
'Taken in both flanks, by the good god!' Sarkis exclaimed. 'Your Majesty, my hat's off to you.' He doffed the iron pot he wore on his head to show he meant his words literally.
'You helped come up with the plan,' Krispos said. 'Besides, we both ought to thank Zaidas for giving a signal the watchers from both concealed flanking parties could see and use. Better by far than trying to gauge when to come in by the sandglass or any other way I could think of.'
'Very well.' Sarkis took off his helmet for Zaidas, too.
The wizard's grin took years off his age and reminded Krispos of the eager, almost painfully bright youngster he'd been when he began his sorcerous service. That had been in the last campaign against Harvas, till now the hardest one Krispos had known. But civil war—and religious civil war at that—was worse than any attack from a foreign foe.
Where the Avtokrator and the general had praised his sorcery, Zaidas thought about the fighting that remained ahead. 'We still have to win the battle,' he said. 'Fail in that and the best plan in the world counts for nothing.'
Krispos studied the field. Had the Thanasioi been professional soldiers, they might have salvaged something by retreating as soon as they discovered themselves so disastrously outflanked. But all they understood of the military art was going forward no matter what. That only got them more thoroughly trapped.
For the first time since fighting began, Krispos turned loose a smile. 'This is a battle we are going to win,' he said.
Phostis was only a few feet from his father when Krispos claimed victory. He was no practiced strategist himself, but he could see that a foe attacked on three sides at once was on the way to destruction. He was glad Olyvria had stayed back at the camp. Though she'd given herself to him without reservation, seeing all her father's hopes go down in ruin could only bring her pain.
Phostis knew pain, too, but of a purely physical sort. His shoulder ached with the effort it took to hold up a shield against arrows and saber slashes. In another couple of weeks it could have borne the burden without complaint, but not yet.
Screeching 'The gleaming path!' for all they were worth, the Thanasioi mounted yet another charge. And from the midst of the fanatics' ranks. Phostis heard another cry, one not fanatical at all: 'If we slay the Avtokrator, lads, it's all up for grabs!'
Fueled by desperation, fervor, and that coldly rational cry, the heretics surged against the right wing of the imperial line. As they had once before, they shot and hacked their way through the Halogai and Videssians protecting Krispos. All at once, being of high rank stopped mattering.
Off to one side of Phostis, Sarkis laid about him with a vigor that denied his bulk. To the other, Krispos and Katakolon were both engaged. Before Phostis could spur his horse to their aid, someone landed what felt like a hammer blow to his shield.
He twisted in the saddle. His foe was yelling at the top of his lungs; his was the voice that had urged the Thanasioi against Krispos. 'Syagrios!' Phostis yelled.
The ruffian's face screwed into a gap-toothed grimace of hate. 'You, eh?' he said. 'I'd rather carve you than your old man—I owe you plenty, by the good god.' He sent a vicious cut at Phostis' head.
Just staying alive through the next minute or so was as hard as anything Phostis had ever done. He didn't so much as think of attack; defense was enough and more. Intellectually, he knew that was a mistake—if all he did was try to block Syagrios' blows, sooner or later one would get through. But they came in such unrelenting torrents that he could do nothing else. Syagrios was twice his age and more, but fought with the vigor of a tireless youth.
As he slashed, he taunted Phostis: 'After I'm done with you, I'll settle accounts with that little whore who crowned me. Pity you won't be around to watch, on account of it'd be worth seeing. First I'll cut her a few times, just so she hurts while I'm—' He went into deliberately obscene detail.
Fury all but blinded Phostis. The only thing that kept him from attacking wildly, foolishly, was the calculating look in Syagrios' eyes as he went through his speech. He was working to enrage, to provoke. Refusing to give him what he wanted was the best thing Phostis saw to do.
A Haloga came up on Syagrios' left side. The ruffian had no shield, but managed to turn aside the guardsman's axe with the flat of his blade. That wouldn't work every time, and he knew it. He spurred his horse away from the northerner—and from Phostis.
As he drew back, Phostis cut at him. The stroke missed. Phostis laughed. In the romances, the hero always slashed the villain into steaks. In real life, you were lucky if you didn't get hacked to bits yourself.
Since he was for the moment not beset, Phostis looked around to see how his comrades were faring. He found Krispos in the midst of a sea of shouting Thanasioi. The Avtokrator, badly beset, slashed frantically this way and that.
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.
