every which way. I thought my own raw troops would do the same thing, but they haven't, and I'm proud of them for it.»
«I can see that, since it would have been your neck, too, if they did fall apart,» Turan said judiciously. «But you can fight another battle with 'em, and they're ready to do it, too. My half of the army will be better for seeing that.»
«They are ready to fight again,» Abivard agreed. «That surprises me, too, maybe more than anything else.» He waved toward the northeast, the direction in which Maniakes' army had gone. «The only question is. Will we be able to catch up with the Videssians and bring them to battle again? It's because I have my doubts that I'm thinking so hard of flooding the land between the Tutub and the Tib.»
«I understand your reasons, lord,» Turan said, «but it strikes me as a counsel of desperation, and there are a lot of city governors it would strike the same way. And if they're not happy—» He broke off once more. They'd already been around to that point on the wheel.
Abivard didn't know how to keep them from going around again, either. But before he had to try, a scout interrupted the circle, crying, «Lord, cavalry approach from out of the north!»
Maybe Maniakes hadn't been satisfied to beat just one piece of the Makuraner army, after all. Maybe he was coming back to see if he could smash the other half, too. Such thoughts ran through Abivard's mind in the couple of heartbeats before he shouted to the trumpeters: «Blow the call for line of battle!»
Martial music rang out. Men grabbed weapons and rushed to their places more smoothly than he would have dared hope a couple of weeks before. If Maniakes was coming back to finish the job, he'd get a warm reception. Abivard was pleased to see how well Turan's troops moved along with his own, who had been blooded. The former squadron commander had done well with as large a body of men.
«Sharbaraz!» roared the Makuraner troops as the on-rushing cavalry drew near. A few of them yelled «Abivard!» too, making their leader proud and apprehensive at the same time.
And then they got a better look at the approaching army. They cried out in wonder and delight, for it advanced under the red-lion banner of the King of Kings. And its soldiers also cried Sharbaraz name, and some few of them the name of their commander as well: «Tzikas!»
VI
One of the lessons Abivard's father, Godarz, had drilled into him was not asking the God for anything he didn't really want, because he was liable to get it anyhow. He'd forgotten that principle on this campaign, and now he was paying for it.
The look on Turan's face probably mirrored the one on his own. His lieutenant asked, «Shall we welcome them, lord, or order the attack?»
«A good question.» Abivard shook his head, as much to suppress his own temptation as for any other reason. «Can't do that, I'm afraid. We welcome them. Odds are, Tzikas doesn't know I know he sent those letters complaining of me to Sharbaraz.»
If the Videssian renegade did know that, he gave no sign of it. He rode out in front of the ranks of his own horsemen and through the foot soldiers—who parted to give him a path—straight up to Abivard. When he reached him, he dismounted and went down on one knee in what was, by Videssian standards, the next closest thing to an imperial greeting. «Lord, I am here to aid you,» he declared in his lisping Makuraner.
Abivard, for his part, spoke in Videssian: «Rise, eminent sir. How many men have you brought with you?» He gauged Tzikas' force. «Three thousand, I'd guess, or maybe a few more.»
«Near enough, lord,» Tzikas answered, sticking to the language of the land that had adopted him. «You gauge numbers with marvelous keenness.»
«You flatter me,» Abivard said, still in Videssian; he would not acknowledge Tzikas as a countryman. Then he showed his own fangs, adding, «I wish you had been so generous when you discussed me with Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his days be long and his realm increase.»
A Makuraner, thus caught out, would have shown either anger or shame. Tzikas proved himself foreign by merely nodding and saying, «Ah, you found out about that, did you? I wondered if you would.»
Abivard wondered what he was supposed to make of that. It sounded as if in some perverse way it was a compliment. However Tzikas meant it, Abivard didn't like it. He growled, «Yes, I found out about it, by the God. It almost cost me my head. Why shouldn't I bind you and give you to Maniakes to do with as he pleases?»
«You could do that.» Though Tzikas continued to speak Makuraner, even without his accent Abivard would have had no doubt he was dealing with a Videssian. Instead of bellowing in outrage or bursting into melodramatic tears, the renegade sounded cool, detached, calculating, almost amused. «You could—if you wanted to put the realm in danger or, rather, in more danger man it's in already.»
Abivard wanted to hit him, to get behind the calm mask he wore to the man within… if there was a man within. But Tzikas, like a rider controlling a restive horse, had known exactly where to flick him with the whip to get him to jump in the desired direction. Abivard tried not to acknowledge that, saying, «Why should removing you from command of your force here have anything to do with how well the troopers fight? You're good in the field, but you're not so good as all that.»
«Probably not—not in the field,» Tzikas answered, sparring still. «But I am very good at picking the soldiers who go into my force, and, brother-in-law to the King of Kings, I am positively a genius when it comes to picking the officers who serve under me.»
Abivard had learned something of the subtle Videssian style of fighting with words while in exile in the Empire and later in treating with his foes. Now he said, «You may be good at picking those who serve under you, eminent sir, but not in picking those under whom you serve. First you betrayed Maniakes, then me. Beware falling between two sides when both hate you.»
Tzikas bared his teeth; that had pierced whatever armor he had put around his soul. But he said, «You may insult me, you may revile me, but do you want to work with me to drive Maniakes from the land of the Thousand Cities?»
«An interesting choice, isn't it?» Abivard said, hoping to make Tzikas squirm even more. Tzikas, though, did not squirm but merely waited to see what Abivard would say next—which required Abivard to decide what he would say next. «I still think I should take my chances on how your band performs without you.»
«Yes, that is what you would be doing,» the renegade said. «I've taught them everything I know— everything.»
Abivard did not miss the threat there. What Tzikas knew best was how to change sides at just the right—or just the wrong– moment. Would the soldiers he commanded go over to Maniakes if something—even something like Maniakes, if Abivard handed Tzikas to him—happened to him? Or would they simply refuse to fight for Abivard? Would they perhaps do nothing at all except obey their new commander?
Those were all interesting questions. They led to an even more interesting one: could Abivard afford to find out?
Reluctantly, he decided he couldn't. He desperately needed that cavalry to repel the Videssians, and Tzikas, if loyal, made a clever, resourceful general. The trouble was, he made a clever, resourceful general even if he wasn't loyal, and that made him more dangerous than an inept traitor. Abivard did his best not to worry about that. His best, he knew, would not be good enough.
Hating every word, he said, «If you keep your station, you do it as my hunting dog. Do you understand, eminent sir? I need not give you to the Avtokrator to be rid of you. If you disobey me, you are a dead man.»
«By the God, I understand, lord, and by the God, I swear I will obey your every command.» Tzikas made the left-handed gesture every follower of the Prophets Four used. He probably meant it to reassure Abivard. Instead, it only made him more suspicious. He doubted Tzikas' conversion as much as he doubted everything else about the renegade.
But he needed the horsemen Tzikas had led down from Vaspurakan, and he needed whatever connections Tzikas still had inside Maniakes' army. Treachery cut both ways, and Tzikas still hated Maniakes for being
