“Sure and it’s half a roast marmot,” the Celt told him, grinning. “Begging your honor’s pardon and all, but I was after eating the last of my sausage today.”

  Goudeles turned a pale green. “Somehow I find my appetite is less hearty than it was, though my thanks, of course, for your generosity.” He gave the ground squirrel back to Viridovix.

  “Ride, then,” Skylitzes snapped. As Goudeles clucked to his horse, though, the officer admitted to Gorgidas, “I’m low myself; we should stop for a hunt soon.”

  The Greek dipped his head in his people’s gesture of agreement. “So am I.” He shuddered slightly. “We could go on the nomad way for a while, living off our horses’ blood.” He did not intend to be taken seriously. The idea revolted him.

  Not so Skylitzes; all he said was, “That’s for emergencies only. It runs the animals down too badly.” He had traveled the steppes before and was at home with the customs of the plainsmen, speaking both the Arshaum and Khamorth tongues fluently.

  The Arshaum moved steadily over the Pardrayan plain, their course a bit east of south. Alternately walking and trotting, their ponies ate up the miles. The rough-coated little beasts were not much for looks, but there was iron endurance in them. Gorgidas blessed the wet ground and thick grass cover of approaching spring; later in the year the army would have kicked up great choking clouds of dust.

  When afternoon came, the sun sparkled off the waters of the inland Mylasa Sea on the western horizon. Other than that, the steppe was all but featureless, an endless, gently rolling sea of grass that stretched from the borders of Videssos further west than any man knew. As a landscape, Gorgidas found it dull. He had grown up with the endless variety of terrain Greece offers: seacoast, mountains, carved valleys kissed by the Mediterranean sun or dark under forest, and flatlands narrow enough to walk across in half a day.

  To Viridovix the limitless vistas of the steppe were not so much boring as actively oppressive. His Gallic woods cut down the sweep of vision, left a man always close to something he could reach out and touch. The plains made him feel tiny and insignificant, an insect crawling across a tray. He fought his unreasoning fear as best he could, riding near the center of the army to use the nomads around him as a shield against the vastness beyond.

  Each day he looked south in the hope of seeing the mountains of Erzerum—the peaks that separated Pardraya from Yezd—shoulder their way up over the edge of the world. So far he had been disappointed. “One morning they’ll be peeping up, though, and none too soon for me,” he said to Batbaian. “It does a body good, knowing there’s an end to all this flat.”

  “Why?” Batbaian demanded, as used to open space as Viridovix was to his narrow forest tracks. His companions also shook their heads at the Celt’s strange ways. As he usually did, Batbaian rode with the ten-man guard squad that had accompanied the Videssian embassy out from Prista. Except for Viridovix and Skylitzes, the troopers were the only ones with the army who spoke his tongue, and most of them had Khamorth blood.

  The squad leader, Agathias Psoes, was a Videssian, but years at the edge of Pardraya had left him as at home in the language of its people as in the imperial tongue. “Country doesn’t matter one way or the other,” he said with an old soldier’s cynicism. “It’s the bastards who live on it that cause the trouble.”

  Viridovix burst out laughing. “Here and I thought I was rid o’ Gaius Philippus for good and all, and up springs his shadow.” Psoes, who knew next to nothing of the Romans, blinked in incomprehension.

  “What are the lot of you grunting about there?” an Arshaum asked. Viridovix turned his head to see Arghun the khagan and his younger son Dizabul coming up alongside the guardsmen. The men from Shaumkhiil spoke a smooth, sibilant tongue; the harsh gutturals of the Khamorth speech grated on their ears.

  With Arghun, though, the teasing was good-natured. He led the Gray Horse clan, the largest contingent of the Arshaum army, more by guile and persuasion than by the bluff bluster Viridovix had used as a chief among the Lexovii back in Gaul.

  The Celt translated as well as he could; he was beginning to understand the Arshaum language fairly well, but speaking it was harder. “And what do you think of that, red whiskers?” Arghun asked. Viridovix’ exotic coloring fascinated him, as did the Celt’s luxuriant mustaches. The khagan grew only a few gray hairs on his upper lip and frankly envied the other’s splendid ornament.

  “Me? I puts it the other way round. People is people anywheres, but the—how you be saying?—scenery, it change a lot.”

  “Something to that,” Arghun nodded, an instinctively shrewd politician for all his barbaric trappings.

  “How can you tell, father?” Dizabul said, his regular features twisting into a sneer. “He talks so poorly it’s next to impossible to make out what he says.” With a supercilious smile, he turned to Viridovix, “That should be ‘I would put,’ outlander, and ‘people are people,’ and ‘scenery changes.’ ”

  “I thank your honor,” the Gaul said—not at all what he was thinking. Dizabul struck him as Arghun’s mistake; the lad had grown up having his every whim indulged, with predictable results. He also loathed his brother and everyone connected with him, which added venom to the tone he took with Viridovix. “Spoiled as a salmon a week out of water,” the Gaul muttered in his own speech.

  Arghun shook his head at Dizabul in mild reproof. “I’d sooner hear good sense wearing words of old sheepskin than numskullery or wickedness decked out in sable.”

  “Listen to him and welcome, then,” Dizabul snarled, bristling at even the suggestion of criticism. “I shan’t waste my time.” He flicked his horse’s reins and ostentatiously trotted away.

  Gorgidas, who was deep in conversation with Tolui the shaman, glanced up as Dizabul rode past. His eyes followed the comely youth as another man’s might a likely wench. He was only too aware of the young princeling’s petulance and vile temper, but the sheer physical magnetism he exerted almost made them forgettable. He realized he had missed Tolui’s last couple of sentences. “I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

  “When spring is far enough for the frogs to come out,” Tolui repeated, “there is a potion I intend to try on Arghun’s lameness. It should be only days now.”

  “Ah?” said the Greek, interested again as soon as medicine was mentioned. His own knowledge had been enough to save the khagan’s life from a draft of hemlock Bogoraz of Yezd had given him when Arghun decided for Videssos, but the paralyzing drug left Arghun’s legs permanently weakened. Gorgidas had not been able to work the Videssian styly of healing then, and it did no good against long-established infirmities.

  “I need nine frogs,” the shaman explained. “Their heads are pithed, and the yellow fluid that comes out is mixed with melted goat fat in a pot. The pot is sealed and left in the sun for a day and in a fire overnight. Then the oil that is left is dabbed on the afflicted joints with a feather. Most times it works well.”

  “I’d not heard of that one before,” Gorgidas admitted, intrigued and a little nauseated. He thought of something else. “Lucky for you Arghun is no Khamorth, or you’d never get near him with that medicine.”

  Tolui barked laughter. “True. Just another proof the Hairies—” He used his people’s contemptuous nickname for the heavily bearded natives of Pardraya. “—hardly rate being called men at all.”

  “Tomorrow we will hunt,” Arghun declared, sitting by the campfire and spooning up the last of his miserable meal of curds and water. A few of his men still hoarded a bit of sausage or smoked meat, while others had knocked over hares or other small game while they traveled; but most were reduced to the same iron rations he carried, or to blood.

  “About time. This Pardraya is a paltry place,” said Irnek, a tall nomad who led the Arshaum of the Black Sheep clan, next most numerous after the Gray Horses of Arghun and sometimes rivals to them. Puzzlement dwelt in the Arshaum’s eyes; he was a clever man, confused by what he was finding. He went on, “It should not be so. This land draws more rain than our Shaumkhiil and ought to support rich flocks. Not from what we’ve seen, though; I begin to forget the very look of a cow or sheep.”

  Angry growls of agreement rose from the plainsmen who heard him. They had counted on raiding the herds of the Khamorth as they traversed Pardraya on their way to Yezd, but since they crossed the Shaum those herds were nowhere to be found. They took the occasional stray cow, goat, fat-tailed sheep, but came across none of the great flocks that were as vital to the nomads as a farmer’s crops to him.

  For that matter, they had seen few Khamorth, not even scouts dogging their trail. The Arshaum took that as but another sign of cowardice, and joked about it. “What do the Hairies do when they see us coming?” to which the answer was, “Who knows? We never get the chance to find out.”

  The men who traveled with them worried more. Viridovix knew from bitter experience that Avshar could track him by his blade. No magic would bite on it, but that very blankness made it detectable to the wizard-prince. “Sure and it’s no happen-so we’ve not had greetings from the spalpeen. Belike he’s brewing somewhat against us.”

  “A greater concern,” Pikridios Goudeles said, “is why no great number of Khamorth have gone over to us. Living under Avshar can scarcely be pleasant.”

  “A good point,” said Gorgidas, who had wondered the same thing.

  “Two reasons,” Batbaian answered in his labored Videssian. “One, he rules through Varatesh, who is outlaw, yes, but from family of a khagan. He makes a good dog.” The plainsman’s eye narrowed in contempt.

  “That one’s more than Avshar’s hound,” Viridovix disagreed. The time he had spent in Varatesh’s clutches made him thoroughly respect the outlaw chieftain’s talents.

  “I say what I say,” Batbaian declared flatly. He stared at the Gaul, challenging him to argue further. Viridovix shrugged and waved for him to go on. “All right. Other reason is that most Khamorth worse afraid of Arshaum than of wizard. I was, so much I did not think of them till you say they might be help in revenge. May be lots of rebels hate Avshar but fear us here, too.”

  “Something to that,” Skylitzes said. “He’s also had the winter to deal with uprisings. A lesson or two from him would make anyone thoughtful.”

  “Thoughtful, forsooth!” Goudeles said. “Are you in a contest of understatement with me, Lankinos? Shall we go on to style this hateful winter just past ‘cool,’ Phos’ High Temple ‘large,’ and Erzerum ‘hilly’?”

  Skylitzes’ mouth twitched in the grimace he used for a smile. “Fair enough. We could call you ‘gassy,’ while we were about it.”

  The bureaucrat spluttered while his comrades laughed. Gorgidas made them serious once more when he asked, “If Avshar does assail us, how are we going to be able to resist him?”

  “Fight him, crush him, kill him,” Batbaian growled. “Stake him out on plains for vultures to eat. Why else did V’rid’rish bring me here to join you?”

  “Crush him, aye, but how?” the Greek persisted. “Many have tried, but none succeeded yet.”

  Batbaian glared at him as he would have at anyone who questioned the certainty of vengeance. Skylitzes said, “These Arshaum are better warriors than the Khamorth, Gorgidas—and both sides think that’s true, which helps make it so.”

  “What of it?” Gorgidas said. “Avshar need not have the finest soldiers to win. Look at Maragha, look at the battle on the steppe here last fall against Batbaian’s father. In both of them it was his magic that made his victory for him, not the quality of his troops.”

  A gloomy silence fell. There was no denying the physician was right; he usually was. At last Viridovix said, “Very good, your generalship, sir, you’ve gone and named the problem for us. Are you after having somewhat in mind for solving it, or is it you want the rest of us grumpy as your ain self?”

  “To the crows with you,” Gorgidas said, nettled at the teasing. “What do I know of ordering battles and such? You were the great war-chieftain back there in Gaul—what would you do?”

  Viridovix suddenly grew bleak. “Whatever the unriddling may be, I dinna ken it. For fighting the whoreson straight up, I was, and see how well that worked.”

  Cursing his clumsy tongue, Gorgidas started an apology, but Viridovix waved it away. “It was a question fairly put. The now, the best I know to do is find my bedroll and hope some good fairy’ll whisper me my answer whilst I sleep.”

  “Fair enough.” The Greek’s eyes were getting sandy, too.

  When morning came Viridovix was still without his solution. “Och, it’s no luck the puir fairies ha’. They must wear out the wings of ’em or ever they get to this wretched world, the which is so far away and all,” he said sadly.

  His disappointment was quickly forgotten, though, in amazement over the Arshaum hunt. “Not ones to do things by halves, are they now?” he said to Gorgidas.

  “Hardly.” The entire Videssian embassy party made up a small part of one wing of the Arshaum army which, led by Arghun, spread out in a long east–west line across the steppe. The other half of the force, under Irnek’s command, rode south. Sometime near noon they would also spread out, and then move north as Arghun’s followers came down to meet them, the two lines trapping all the game between them.

  The Khamorth did not stage such elaborate hunts; Batbaian was astonished to watch the Arshaum deployment. “This might as well war be,” he said to Arigh.

  “Why not?” the other returned. “What harder foe than hunger? Or do you enjoy the feel of your belly cozying up to your backbone?” It took a good deal to make the grim young Khamorth smile, but his lips parted for a moment.

  When Arghun saw his line in position and judged Irnek had taken the rest of the nomads far enough south to shut in a good bag of game, he raised the army’s standard high above his head. Fluttering on the end of a lance was Bogoraz’s long wool caftan, all that was left of the treacherous ambassador. Like the Videssian party, he had sworn an oath to Arghun’s shamans that he meant the khagan no harm and walked through their magic fire as surety for it. When he broke his pledge, the fire claimed him.

  With the lifting of the standard, the line rolled forward. The Arshaum who had them pounded on drums, tooted pipes and bone whistles, winded horns. The rest yelled at the top of their lungs to scare beasts from cover.

  Trotting along with the rest, Viridovix threw back his head and let out the unearthly wailing shriek of a Gallic war cry. “I don’t know about the bloody animals,” Gorgidas said with a shudder, “but you certainly frighten me.”

  “And what good is that, when you’re nobbut skin and bones? Och, look, there goes a hare!” An Arshaum shot the little creature at the top of its leap. Backed by his potent bow, the arrow knocked it sideways. It kicked a couple of times and lay still. The plainsman leaned down from his saddle, grabbed it by the ears, and tossed it into a sack.

  Viridovix howled again. “Something worthwhile for me to do, then; it’s no dab hand at the bow I make, not next to these lads.”

  “Nor I,” the Greek replied. He flapped his arms, bawled out snatches of Homer and Aiskhylos. Whether or not it was his antics that flushed it, another rabbit broke cover in front of him. Instead of running away, the panicked little beast darted straight past his horse. He cut at it with his sword, far too late. The nomad next to him shook his head derisively, mimed drawing a bow. He spread his hands in rueful agreement and apology.

  Something went “Honk! Ho-onkk!” a couple of hundred feet down the line. Gorgidas saw a shape running through the grass, a couple of plainsmen in hot pursuit. Then it suddenly bounded into the air, flying strongly on short, stubby wings. The sun shone, metallic, off bronze tail feathers and head of iridescent red and green. “Pheasant!” Viridovix whooped. A storm of arrows brought the bird down. The Gaul fairly drooled. “Age him right, braise him with mushrooms, wild thyme, and a bit o’ wormwood to cut the grease—”

  “Remember where you are,” Gorgidas said. “You’ll be lucky if he gets cooked.” Crestfallen, Viridovix gave a regretful nod.

  A nomad shouted and his horse screamed in terror as a furiously spitting wildcat sprang at them. It clawed the horse’s flank, sank its teeth into the Arshaum’s calf, and was gone before anyone could do anything about it. The cursing plainsman bound up his leg and rode on, ignoring his comrades’ jeers. Gorgidas reminded himself to look at the wound when the hunt was gone. Untended animal bites were almost sure to fester.

  More arrows leaped into the sky as the hunters splashed through a small, chilly stream and sent geese and ducks up in desperate flight. Viridovix greedily snatched up a fat goose that had tumbled to earth with an arrow through its neck. “I’ll not let anyone botch this,” he said, as if challenging the world. “All dark meat it is, and all toothsome, too. O’ course,” he went on with a pointed glance Gorgidas’ way, “I might enjoy the sharing of it, at least with them as dinna mock me.”

  “I’m plainly doomed to starve, then,” the Greek said. Viridovix made a rude noise.

  Goudeles said, “If it’s praises you seek, outlander, I’ll gladly compose a panegyric for you in exchange for a leg of that succulent fowl.” He struck a pose—not an easy thing to do on horseback for such an indifferent rider—declaiming, “Behold the Phos-fostered foreigner, magnificent man of deeds of dought—”

  “Oh, stifle it, Pikridios,” Skylitzes said. “You’re still fatter than the damned bird is, and slipperier than goose grease ever was.” Not a bit offended, the bureaucrat went right on, the course best calculated to annoy Skylitzes.

  “I wish we could bag more of these birds,” Gorgidas said. “Too many are getting away.”

  “We will,” Arigh promised, “but there aren’t enough to be worthwhile this time.” He pointed. “See? Tolui is ready when we come on a big flock.”

  The shaman was not wearing his usual garb, which differed not at all from that of the rest of the plainsmen: fur cap with ear flaps, tunic of sueded leather, heavy sheepskin jacket—some wore wolf, fox, or otter—leather trousers, and soft-soled boots. Instead, he had donned the fantastic regalia of his calling. Long fringes, some knotted to trap spirits and others dyed bright colors, hung from every inch of his robe and streamed behind him as he rode. A lurid, leering mask of hide stretched over a wooden framework hid his face. Only the sword that swung at his belt said he was human, not some demon’s spawn.