struggled with the irony of being treated by a man he despised.
'Any time.' Syagrios set a hand on his good shoulder. 'I never would've thought it, but you really do want to walk the gleaming path, don't you? You laid out that monk fine as you please, and then you were ready to take on all the imperials at the same time. More brave than smart, maybe, but to the ice with smart, sometimes. You done better'n I would've dreamed.'
'To the ice with smart, sometimes,' Phostis repeated wearily. At last he'd found what it took to satisfy Syagrios: be too cowardly to refuse what he was ordered and then botch what he'd intended as a desertion. The moral there was too elusive for him. He let out a long, worn sigh.
'Yeah, sleep while you can,' Syagrios said. 'We'll have some fancy riding to do tomorrow before we're sure we've broken loose from the stinking imperials. But I've got to get you back to Etchmiadzin. Now that I know for sure you're with us, we'll have all kinds of things we can use you for.'
Sleep? Phostis wouldn't have imagined it possible. Even though the worst of the agony had left his shoulder now that the arrow was out, it still ached like a rotting tooth and throbbed in time to his pulse. But as the wild excitement of the ride and the fight faded, exhaustion rolled over him like a great black tide. Rough ground, aching shoulder—no matter. He slept hard.
He woke from a dream where a wolf was alternately biting and kicking him to find Syagrios shaking him back to consciousness. The shoulder still hurt fiercely, but he managed a nod when the ruffian asked if he could ride.
He did his best to forget as much as he could of the journey back to Etchmiadzin. However much he tried, he couldn't forget the torment of more wine poured into his wound at every halt. The shoulder got hot, but only right around the hole in it so he supposed the treatment, no matter how agonizing, did some good.
He wished a healer-priest would look at the wound, but had not seen any such among the Thanasioi. That made theological sense: if the body, like all things of this world, sprang from Skotos. what point to making any special effort to preserve it? Such an attitude was easy enough to maintain as an abstract principle. When it came down to Phostis' personal body and its pain, abstract principles got trivial fast.
The rising foothills ahead seemed welcome, not because Etchmiadzin was the home the Thanasioi had hoped it would become for him, but because they meant the imperial soldiers would not catch him on the road and finish the job of killing him. And, he reminded himself, Olyvria would be back at the fortress. The aching wound kept him from being as delighted about that as he would have been otherwise.
When the raiders drew near the valley that cupped Etchmiadzin. Themistios rode up to Syagrios and said, 'My men and I will follow the gleaming path against the materialists now. Go as Phos wills you; we cannot follow any farther.'
'I can take him in from here easy enough,' Syagrios answered, nodding. 'Do what you need to do, Themistios, and may the good god keep his eyes on you and your lads.'
Singing a hymn with Thanasiot lyrics, the zealots wheeled their horses and rode back out of the holy work of slaughter and destruction. Syagrios and Phostis kept on toward the stronghold of Etchmiadzin.
'We'll get you patched up proper, make sure that arm's all right before we send you out again.' Syagrios said as the gray stone mass of the fortress came in view. 'Might be just as well I'm here, too, in case we need to settle anything while Livanios is in the field.'
'Whatever you say.' All Phostis wanted was a chance to get down from his horse and not have to mount again for, say, the next ten years.
Etchmiadzin seemed strangely spacious as he and Syagrios rode through the muddy streets toward the fortress. Wits dulled by pain and fatigue. Phostis needed longer than he should have to figure out why. At last he realized that most of the soldiers who had swelled the town through the winter were off glorifying the lord with the great and good mind by laying waste to what they reckoned the creations of his evil foe.
Only a couple of sentries stood guard at the fortress gate. The inner ward felt empty without warriors at weapons practice or listening to one of Livanios' orations. Most of the heresiarch's chief aides seemed to have gone with him; at least no one came out of the keep to take a report from Syagrios.
As Phostis soon discovered, that was because the keep was almost empty, too. His footsteps and Syagrios' echoed down the halls that had been crammed with soldiers. At least life did exist inside. A trooper came out of the chamber where Livanios had been wont to hold audiences as if he were Avtokrator. Seeing Phostis leaning on Syagrios, he asked the ruffian, 'What happened to him?'
'What does it look like?' Syagrios growled. 'He just found out he's been chosen patriarch and he can't even walk for the joy of it.' The Thanasiot gaped; Phostis fought not to giggle as he watched the fellow realize Syagrios was being sarcastic. Syagrios pointed to the stained bandage on his shoulder. 'He got shot in a scrape with the imperials—he did good.'
'All right, but why bring him back here?' the soldier said. 'He don't look like he's hurt too bad.'
'You likely can't tell under all the dirt and stuff, but this is the Emperor's brat.' Syagrios answered. 'We need to take a little more care with him than with your regular fighter.'
'Why?' Like any Videssian, the Thanasiot was ready to argue about his faith on any excuse or none. 'We're all alike on the gleaming path.'
'Yeah, but Phostis here has special worth,' Syagrios returned. 'If we use him right, he can help us put lots of new people on the gleaming path.'
The soldier chewed on that: literally, for he gnawed at his lower lip while he thought. At last, grudgingly, he nodded. 'The doctrine may be sound.'
Syagrios turned his head to mutter into Phostis' ear, 'The clincher is, I'd have chopped him into raven's meat if he said me nay.' He gave his attention back to the trooper. 'Is anybody left alive in the kitchens? We're starved, and not on purpose.'
'Should be someone there,' the fellow answered, though he frowned at Syagrios' levity.
Phostis had not had much appetite since he was wounded. Now his belly rumbled hungrily at the thought of food. Maybe that meant he was getting better.
The smell of bean porridge and onions and bread in the kitchens made his insides growl all over again. Bowls were piled in great stacks there, against a need that had for the moment gone. Only a handful of people sat at the long tables. Phostis' heart gave a lurch—one of them was Olyvria.
