archers to stop whatever they were doing and get busy doing what he told them.
Be careful, Abivard thought as the light cavalry went trotting out ahead of the more heavily armored riders. Tzikas was liable to be trouble no matter how careful you were; that was why so many people had so much to discuss with him.
Almost as an afterthought, Abivard dashed off a quick letter to Sharbaraz, detailing not only the victory he had won over the imperials but also Tzikas' role in making that victory less than it should have been. Let's see the cursed renegade try to get back into the good graces of the King of Kings after that, he thought with considerable satisfaction.
The farther south Maniakes rode, the closer to the source of the Tutub he drew. The land rose. In administrative terms it was still part of the land of the Thousand Cities, but it was unlike the floodplain on which those cities perched. For one thing, the hills here were natural, not the end product of countless years of rubble and garbage. For another, none of the Thousand Cities was anywhere close by. A few fanners lived by the narrow stream of the Tutub and the even narrower tributaries feeding it. A few hunters roamed the wooded hills. For the most part, though, the land seemed empty, deserted.
Abivard wondered what Maniakes had in mind in such unpromising country. He understood why this part of the region remained unfamiliar to him: it wasn't worth visiting. He wished the Videssians joy of it. At an officers' council he said, «If they try to stay here, they'll starve, and in short order, too. If they try to leave, they'll have to cross a fair stretch of country worse than this before they come to any that's better.»
Sanatruq said, «If they leave, we'll have driven them out of the land of the Thousand Cities. That was what Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase, set us to do at the start of the campaigning season. I'm not sure anyone thought we could do it, but we've done it.»
«We had a certain amount of expert help, for which I'm grateful,» Abivard said to Romezan.
«You wanted to force battle,» the noble of the Seven Clans said. «You were forcing battle when I rode up and found you. Anyone who goes out and fights the enemy deserves to win, so I was glad to give whatever little help I could.» Get in there and fight and worry later about what's supposed to happen next should have been blazoned on Romezan's surcoat and painted in big letters on the front of his armor.
«Looks to me like good country for scouring with light cavalry,» Abivard said, nodding to Sanatruq. «The rest of us can follow after they've developed whatever positions the Videssians are holding.»
«What do you think the Videssians are doing here, lord?» Romezan asked. «Are they really finished for this campaigning season, or do they aim to give us one more boot in the crotch if we let'em?»
«From what I know of Maniakes, I'd say he wants to hit us again if he finds the chance,» Abivard said. «But I admit that's only a guess.» He grinned at the noble of the Seven Clans. «You asked me just to hear me guess so you can twit me for it if I turn out to be wrong.»
«Ha!» Romezan said. «I can figure you for foolish without getting as complicated as that.»
Abivard waited till his subordinates were done laughing, then said, «We'll go ahead as if we're certain Maniakes is lying in wait for us. Better to worry and be wrong than not to worry—and be wrong.» Not even Romezan could argue with him there.
Up close, the ground was worse than it appeared. The road through the highlands from which the Tutub sprang wound into little rocky valleys and over hillsides so packed with thorny, spiky scrub plants that going off it cut your speed not in half but to a quarter of what it was on the track.
No, that wasn't true. Going out into the scrub cut your speed to a quarter of what it would have been if the road had been unobstructed. The road, however, was anything but. The Videssians had thoughtfully sown it with caltrops, the exact equivalent for this terrain of breaking canals in the floodplain. Abivard's men had to slow down to clear the spikes, which let Maniakes' force increase its lead.
And to complicate things further, every so often the Videssians would post archers in the undergrowth by the side of the road and try to pot a few of the Makuraners who were picking up the caltrops. That meant Abivard had to send men after them, and that meant he lost still more time.
Seeing Maniakes getting ever farther ahead ate at him. He wanted to keep moving through the night. That made even Romezan raise an eyebrow. «In this wretched country,» he rumbled, «it's hard enough to move during the day. At night—»
If Romezan didn't think it could be done, it couldn't. «But Maniakes is going to get away from us,» Abivard said. «We haven't been able to slow him down no matter how we've tried. And if he can travel two or three more days, he'll strike the river that runs south and east to Lyssaion, and he'll have ships waiting there. Ships.» As he often had of late, he made the word a curse.
«If we take Lyssaion, he may have ships, but he won't have anywhere they can land,» Romezan said.
Abivard shook his head with real regret. «Too late in the year to besiege the place,» he said, «and we haven't got the supplies with us to undertake a siege, anyhow.» He waited to see whether Romezan would argue with that. The noble from the Seven Clans looked unhappy but kept quiet. Abivard went on, «We have driven him out of the land of the Thousand Cities. At the start of the campaigning season I would have been happy to settle for that.»
«Generals who are happy to settle for less than the most they can get mostly don't end up with much,» Romezan observed. That made Abivard bite his lip, for it was true.
Coming to a town in the middle of that rugged country was a surprise. The Videssians had burned the place in passing, but it had been little more than a village even before they had put it to the torch. They'd dumped dead animals into the wells that were probably the town's reason for being, too. After that, though, they seemed to have relented, for they stopped leaving caltrops in the roadway. That might, of course, have indicated a dearth of caltrops rather than a sudden surge in goodwill.
«Now we can make better time,» Romezan said, noting the absence of the freestanding spiked obstructions. He shouted for the vanguard to speed up, then turned to Abivard, saying, «We'll catch the bastards yet; see if we don't.»
«Maybe we will,» Abivard replied. «The God grant we do.» He scratched his head. «It's not like the Videssians to make things easy for us, though.»
«They can't do everything right all the time,» Romezan grunted. «When they squat over a slit trench, it's not rose petals that come out.» He shouted again for more speed. Abivard pondered his analogy.
As the day went on, Abivard began to think the noble from the Seven Clans might have had a point. The army hadn't moved so fast since it had gotten into the uplands, and the Videssians couldn't be very far ahead. One more engagement and Maniakes might not be able to get his army back to Lyssaion.
And then, not long before Abivard was going to order his forces out of their column and into a line of battle despite the rugged terrain, a rider came galloping up the path from the southeast, from the Videssian force toward the Makuraners. He was shouting something in the Makuraner tongue as he drew near. Before long Abivard, who was riding at the front of the column, could make out what it was: «Stop! Hold up! It's a trap!»
Abivard turned to the horn players. «Blow halt,» he commanded. «We have to find out what this means.»
As the call rang out and the horsemen obediently reined in, Abivard studied the approaching horseman, who kept yelling at the top of his lungs. Because the fellow was bawling so hoarsely, Abivard needed longer than he should have to realize he recognized that voice. His jaw fell.
Before he could speak the name, Romezan beat him to it: «That's Tzikas. It can't be, but it is.»
«It really is,» Abivard breathed. By then he could see the renegade's face; Videssians usually didn't go in for chain mail veils. «What is he doing here? Did he try killing Maniakes one more time and botch it again? If he did kill him, he'd do us a favor, but if he killed him, he'd be back with the Videssian army, not coming up to ours.»
Tzikas rode straight up to Abivard, as he had in battle a few days before. This time, though, he did not draw the sword that hung on his hip. «The God be praised,» he said in his lisping Videssian accent. «I've gotten to you before you rode into the trap.» The gelding on which he was mounted was blowing and foam-flecked; he'd come at a horse-killing pace.
«What are you talking about, Tzikas?» Abivard ground out. Nothing would have pleased him more man slaying the renegade. No one could stop him now, not with Tzikas coming alone to him in the midst of his army. But the Videssian never would have done such a thing without a pressing reason. Until Abivard found out what that reason was, Tzikas would keep breathing.
Tzikas wasn't breathing well now; gasping was more like it. «Trap,» he said, pointing over his shoulder.
