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XI

Abivard eyed the approaches to Mashiz with suspicion. Sharbaraz's troops had come to grief there once before, and the army the rightful King of Kings commanded now was smaller than the one he had led the previous summer. One more victory, though, would redeem usurpation and defeat and exile. The Makuraners who had suffered so much for Sharbaraz's cause were grimly determined to achieve that victory.

The Videssians who had accompanied them and made victory possible had no such personal stake in the war. Abivard wondered how they could fight so well without that kind of stake. He asked the younger Maniakes, with whom he had become more and more friendly after the battle in the land of the Thousand Cities,

The Videssian commander's son rolled his eyes. "From what my father says, you've met Likinios Avtokrator. How would you like to go home and explain to him that you hadn't done quite all you could?'

At first, the prospect didn't seem too daunting. Likinios hadn't struck Abivard as a man who flew into a murderous rage without warning, as some memorable Kings of Kings of Makuran had been in the habit of doing. Then he thought of the Videssian Emperor's coldly calculating mind. Likinios wouldn't kill you because he was angry; he would quietly order you slain because he judged you deserved it. But you would end up just as dead either way.

"I take your point," he told the younger Maniakes. The Videssian ruler's style might be coldblooded and alien to the Makuraner way of doing things, but it had its own kind of effectiveness.

Sharbaraz's force advanced through the wreckage of the failed campaign of the year before: skeletons of horses and mules, some with mummified skin still clinging here and there; the burned-out remains of overturned supply wagons; and unburied human bones, as well. The rightful King of Kings surveyed the near ruin of his hopes with an expression thoroughly grim. "Not this time," he declared. "Not this time."

But taking the capital of the realm would not be easy. Where before Smerdis' men had built a temporary barricade across most of the one wide way into Mashiz, now permanent fortifications protected the city from attack. Getting past them looked like a formidable undertaking.

"Don't worry about it," the elder Maniakes said when Abivard did just that. "We'll manage, never you fear."

Promises, even from one who had shown he delivered on them, left Abivard cold. When the Videssian engineers began taking wood and ropes and specialized parts of bronze and iron from their wagons and assembling them into large, complicated contraptions, however, he felt oddly reassured. What they did with such things wasn't magic in any true sense of the word, but it struck him as every bit as marvelous as a lot of the things sorcerers achieved.

"They're very good," Sharbaraz agreed when he said that aloud. "I think the ones who went north over the Degird with my father could have matched them, though. But most of my father's engineers are dead with the rest of his army, and I don't think Smerdis has many of those who are left alive working for him, either. Were things different, the lack could hurt Makuran badly; we'll have to train up a new team of such folk as soon as may be. But for now having engineers, when our foes don't, works for us."

The timbers the Videssians had used to make the flooring for their pontoon bridges and to corduroy roads through the muck left by flooded canals also proved to be the right size for constructing the frames of the engines they were erecting. At first, Abivard thought that an amazing coincidence. Then he realized it wasn't a coincidence at all. The sophisticated planning inherent in that deeply impressed him.

The engines went up at the front and on the right of the northern flank—the one on which Smerdis' men had gained success the summer before—well out of range of archers sheltered by the works the usurper had thrown up. Sharbaraz asked, "Will they be enough to let us pass by the fortress without losing so many men as to ruin us?"

"Provided we beat the men they have outside the walls, the engines will keep those within too busy to do much to us," the elder Maniakes replied.

Abivard said, "What about men issuing forth from one of the narrow ways into Mashiz? That flank attack ruined us last year, and we don't have the men to plug all those routes, not if we want to do real fighting, too."

"The trick of the trade is getting what you want with as little fighting—especially the messy, expensive hand-to-hand you mean—as you can," the Videssian general said. He pointed over to the bank of dart-throwers going up on the northern flank. "Skotos hold my soul in the ice forever if those don't make any charging lancer ever born the most thoughtful man you know."

"May it be so," Sharbaraz said. "My men are eager for the attack. When will all this hammering and spiking be done?"

"We'll be through by evening," the elder Maniakes replied. "Smerdis' men could have given us a deal of grief if they'd come sneaking around trying to wreck the engines or burn 'em down, but they didn't. Maybe they didn't think of it, or maybe they just didn't think it'd work." He shook his head to show his opinion of that. "You always try. Every once in a while, you end up surprising yourself with what you can do."

"I agree," Sharbaraz said. "If I didn't, I never would have fled into Videssos last year."

If Roshnani hadn't thought of it, you'd never have fled into Videssos, Abivard thought. That brought a surge of pride in his wife. It also brought the realization that Denak had been right all along: women's counsel could be as valuable on campaign as back in the women's quarters of the stronghold. Abivard wondered if Sharbaraz had figured that out yet.

He didn't get long to contemplate the notion. The elder Maniakes said, "True enough, your Majesty, but we're on the point of bringing you back home now."

* * *

Dawn brought the promise of a day to steam a man in armor. Abivard was sweating even before he donned the leather-lined shirt of mail and splints, the mail skirt, and the trousers of iron rings. By the time he had affixed his ring-mail veil and aventail and settled his helmet on his head, he felt ready to go into the oven and come forth as cooked meat.

Perhaps, in spite of everything, Smerdis still had spies in Sharbaraz's camp, or perhaps his officers were just good at piecing together what they saw from the works he had built in front of Mashiz. In any case, his soldiers came forth from their camps behind those works and filled the gaps between their walls and the nearly impassable badlands to either side. No, getting into Mashiz was not going to be the triumphal parade Abivard and Sharbaraz had imagined when they set out from Vek Rud stronghold.

The elder Maniakes took charge of proceedings at the outset. Collaring Abivard, he said, "I want you and your best men in front of the siege engines to protect them."

"What?" Abivard said indignantly. "You'd ask me and our best lancers to forgo the charge?"

If the Videssian general noticed his ire, he ignored it. "That's just what I'd ask, for the beginning of the fight, anyhow," he answered. "If we're to win this battle, that's what we need to do. You'll get enough fighting to satisfy the most picky honor later on, I promise you."

He spoke as if honor were something worth only a couple of coppers. You make war like a merchant, and your son is twice the man you'll ever be, Abivard thought. But he could not insult an ally by saying such things to his face. If he took the question to Sharbaraz . . . He shook his head. He couldn't do that. If he did, the elder Maniakes would lose prestige, or else he would lose some himself. Either way, the alliance would suffer.

That left him only one choice. "Very well, eminent sir," he said icily. "I shall rely on your promise."

The elder Maniakes paid no more attention to ice than he had to indignation. "Good, good," he said, as if he had taken Abivard's compliance for granted. "Now do get moving, if you'd be so kind. We can't put on our little show until you do."

Still fuming, Abivard rounded up Zal's regiment of lancers. Zal and many of his riders grumbled when Abivard told them they weren't going to sweep gloriously down on the enemy. He said, "You'll do real fighting later in the day. By the God I swear it." He had to hope he wasn't giving them a false oath.

Grumbling still, the lancers took their places in front of the siege engines the Videssians had built. Made with muddy timbers, the engines looked like frameworks for houses abandoned after a flood. The engineers loaded heavy stones into some and large, stoppered jars with greasy rags sticking out of the stoppers into others.

Abivard twisted in the saddle so he could watch the Videssians touch torches to those greasy rags. At the command of their captains, the engineers discharged the creations. The engines jumped and kicked, as if they were wild asses like those that had given Sharbaraz's followers such a fright the autumn before.

The stones and jars described graceful arcs through the air. As their captains cursed them to ever greater efforts, the Videssians turned windlasses to rewind the engines' ropes and ready them to shoot again. Abivard paid scant heed to that. He watched the stones smash into Smerdis' works. Some fell short, some crashed against the wall, some flew over it to land within. He wouldn't have wanted to be under one of those stones when it came down, any more than he would have cared to be a cockroach stepped on by a lancer's armored boot.

The jars trailed smoke as they flew. Even from a couple of furlongs, even through the shouts of Smerdis' soldiers inside their fortress, he heard pottery smashing. Columns of black, greasy smoke started rising from within the fortifications.

Abivard turned in the saddle again. "Any of you speak my language?" he asked the engineers behind him. When one of them nodded, he went on, "What's in that stuff you're flinging there?"

The Videssian grunted. "Rock oil, sir, and sulfur," he said in fair Makuraner, "and some other things I don't want to tell you what they is. Burns good, don't it?"

"Yes," Abivard said. One of the pillars of smoke was growing rapidly; he guessed the inflammable liquid had splattered over wood or canvas. The engines bucked again, this time in a more ragged salvo. Ragged or not, though, it sent another round of stones and jars flying against the fortress.

"By the God," Zal said, "I'd not like to have to go out in that kind of rain." His gaze sharpened. "And if that kind of rain keeps falling on the fortress for very long, the folk there won't be worth much. They'll be too squashed or toasted to do anything to speak of in the way of fighting."

"That's the idea," Abivard said, also suddenly figuring out why the elder Maniakes had said defending the engines would be a crucial role to play. Sooner or later, Smerdis' generals would realize they had to stop the Videssians from rendering their fort useless. They couldn't do it with archers; the engines were out of range of any bowman. They would have to charge down on them instead.

Sure enough, the charge came, but not from the warriors gathered directly in front of Mashiz. Instead, Smerdis' generals loosed a flanking force of the sort that had brought Sharbaraz such grief in his last attack on the capital. Shouting Smerdis' name, the horsemen thundered down out of the narrow way to the north, as they had the year before.

They got a different reception from the one they had had then, though. The engines on the army's right flank went into action. Some of them threw stones that smashed men and horses alike. No armor could stop the yard-long darts others shot. They pinned soldiers to their mounts and sent them crashing to the ground to foul the troops behind them.

Smerdis' men were brave enough. They kept coming in spite of the toll the engines took. Videssian horsemen rode out to keep them away from those engines and from the main body of Sharbaraz's force.

That was the sideshow, the distraction. The chief action remained at the front. The Videssian engines there kept on pounding the fortress Smerdis had erected. Its wall, which could have stood forever against mere lancers, began to look like a man with bad teeth as it got knocked to pieces. Behind the wall, flames leapt high. Smoke rose higher. It made Abivard cough, and must have been twenty, a hundred times worse for Smerdis' soldiers in the fort, those lucky enough not to have been cooked.

The Videssian captain of engineers shouted more orders in his own language. His men swung the engines slightly off to one side. Then they started shooting again, this time at Smerdis' lancers gathered by the fortress.

Zal grinned a wicked, carnivorous grin. "What a nasty choice that leaves them," he said. "Withdraw out of range and open the way for us or come out and fight and open it anyhow if they lose."

Horns rang out in Smerdis' battered army. Lanceheads glittered in the sun as riders couched their weapons. "Here they come," Abivard said. Smerdis might have been a treacherous usurper, but the troops who had stuck by him had courage enough and to spare.

Abivard swung down his own lance till it pointed straight at the onrushing horsemen. "Sharbaraz!" he cried, and booted his horse in its armored sides to get it going. It sprang forward, seemingly glad to run. Zal echoed his war cry. So did the rest of the soldiers. They had waited far too long to suit them. Now they would have the straight-up fight they had craved.

Someone screeching "Smerdis!" spurred straight for Abivard. Above the fellow's chainmail veil, he caught a brief glimpse of hard, intent eyes. His foe was as glad to be fighting at last as he was. Smerdis' men hadn't just had to wait. They had also watched their comrades in the fortress bombarded and then taken a bombardment themselves.

By the way he sat his horse, the fellow boring in on Abivard knew exactly what he was doing. Instead of aiming for the larger target of Abivard's torso, at the last moment he flicked the point of his lance up at his face.

Fear turned the inside of Abivard's mouth dry and rough. He barely turned the stroke with his shield. His own went wide. He didn't care. He was just glad to be alive to fight someone else who wouldn't unfurl quite so many lethal tricks.

As cavalry battles have a way of doing once the initial impetus of the charge is lost, this one turned into a melee, with men milling about and cursing at the top of their lungs when they weren't shouting their chosen sovereign's name to keep their friends from trying to kill them. They thrust with lances and slashed with swords; their horses, many of them stallions, joined in the fight with bared teeth and flailing hooves that could dash the brains out of a man on the ground.

Somehow one of Smerdis' men had got turned around so he faced back toward the burning fortress. Abivard thought him an ally till he yelled the usurper's name. Then he speared the fellow in the back, thrusting with all his strength to force the lance point through the warrior's armor.

The fellow screamed and threw his arms wide; his sword went spinning through the air. The soldier screamed again. He crumpled, blood pouring from a hole somewhere between his left kidney and his spine. He hadn't known Abivard was there till the lance went into him. Abivard felt more like a murderer than a warrior until someone tried to blindside him. After that, he bore in mind that in battle there was precious little difference between the two.

Little by little, Sharbaraz's men forced their foes back toward the fortress. Videssian horsemen and light-armed Makuraner cavalry, more nimble than either side's lancers, tried to nip in behind Smerdis' horse and cut them off, clearing the way for Sharbaraz's lancers to burst through and storm for Mashiz.

A few archers up on the battered walls of the fortress shot at them. Hundreds would have been up there but for the pounding the siege engines had given the place. But many now were dead, many more hurt, and others fighting the fires the pots of oil had started.

"Onward!" That voice, some yards ahead of him, made Abivard jerk his head up. Sure enough, there was Sharbaraz, laying about him with his sword and spurring his horse on toward the gap that led to Mashiz.

Abivard couldn't imagine how the rightful King of Kings had pushed so far forward in the fighting, but Sharbaraz would have been a dangerous warrior no matter what his station. The only trouble was that, if he fell now, everyone else's exertions would be for nothing.

"Onward!" Abivard cried, and pointed to his sovereign. Now he did not call out Sharbaraz's name, for fear of drawing the enemy's notice to the rightful King of Kings. He pointed to him, though, and waved his arm to urge on his own followers. Not all of them understood his gestures, but enough did to give Sharbaraz a respectable force of protectors in a few minutes.

But Sharbaraz did not want protectors—he seemed to want to be the first man into Mashiz. He plunged into the press once more. His ferocity made those of Smerdis' men who were not in deadly earnest draw back from him. His own men pushed forward to fill the gap and to guard him from the foes who remained full of fight.

A tiny lull in the battle gave Abivard a moment to look around at more than sword's length from him. He realized with surprise and sudden and growing triumph that Smerdis' fortress was no longer in front of him and the rest of the leaders of Sharbaraz's forces—instead, it lay to their right. Sharbaraz had lost this fight the summer before, but he was winning it now.

"Come on!" Abivard yelled, waving again. "One more push and we have them. Once we get past the walls here, the way opens out again, and drop me into the Void if Smerdis' lancers can hold us out of Mashiz then."

Smerdis' soldiers saw that as clearly as he did. They rallied, fighting desperately. But Sharbaraz's men were desperate, too, knowing what another defeat in front of the capital would mean. And their Videssian allies, even without personal stake in the battle, fought as bravely as anyone. They plied Smerdis' men with arrows and pressed the fight at close quarters with sabers and spears. Sharbaraz had worried about betrayal, but the men from the east stayed not only loyal but ferocious.

The counterattack from Smerdis' lancers faltered. Yard by yard, they began giving ground once more. Then, all at once, the way the fortifications had narrowed grew wide again. "To Mashiz!" shouted Sharbaraz, still at the van.

Not only the capital of Makuran loomed ahead. Closer and perhaps more tempting were the tents that marked the encampment of Smerdis' men. "I'll castrate anybody who thinks of loot before victory," Abivard said. "First we win, then we plunder."

As far as he was concerned, the prospect of entering Mashiz was worth more than any booty he could pull from the camp. Other, poorer men, though, were liable to think of silver before victory.

Smerdis' army, the last army that could hold Sharbaraz out of his capital, began to break up. Here and there knots of determined men still fought on, although they had to know victory was hopeless. But others fled, some back toward Mashiz, others over the badlands, hoping their foes would be too busy to pursue them. And still others, as they had between the Tib and the Tutub, threw away their weapons and gave up the fight.

Abivard shouted for some Videssians to take charge of the prisoners. "That's well done," Sharbaraz said, recognizing his voice.

"Thank you, Majesty," he answered. "My thought was that they won't be as hot for revenge as our men." He rode closer to the rightful King of Kings before quietly adding, "And the fewer of them who go into Mashiz with our men, the better."

"Aye, that's just right," Sharbaraz agreed. "They've been all we could ask for as allies—more than I looked for them to be, the God knows. But Mashiz is ours; we can reclaim it on our own." Bitterness crossed his face for a moment. "The Videssians have sacked Mashiz a couple of times, while we've never made our way into Videssos the city. What I wouldn't give to be the King of Kings who changed that."

"Oh, indeed," Abivard said, quietly still. "Not tomorrow, though."

"No." Sharbaraz nodded at that. "But I'm willing to bet Videssos will give us the chance before too many years go by, however well we work with father and son of the Maniakes clan. As you say, first things first." He booted his horse in the ribs, wanting to lead his army into Mashiz. The capital lay less than a quarter of a farsang—a quarter hour's ride—to the west.

Abivard kicked his own mount up to a fast trot to keep pace with his sovereign. "Will we have more fighting to do inside the city?" he asked.

"I hope not," Sharbaraz said. "With any sort of luck, his army will have gone to pieces. But the palace is a formidable place. If he has men willing to fight for him, he could hold out a long time there."

"The Videssians and their siege engines—" Abivard began.

Sharbaraz shook his head. "No, by the God," he said harshly. "If they pound the usurper's men or the works he threw up against me, well and good. But the palace doesn't belong to Smerdis—it's mine, just as Mashiz is ours. I don't want it wrecked if I can find any way around that; I want to live in it after I take Mashiz, as I did before Smerdis stole the throne."

"Very well, Majesty," Abivard said, humbled. To him, the palace was just another military target. To Sharbaraz, it was home.

On they rode. The closer they got, the bigger Mashiz looked to Abivard. It dwarfed Serrhes, which was the only city into which he had ever gone. The towns of the land of the Thousand Cities might well have been as crowded, but they weren't large, not with each one sitting atop a mound made from generations of its own rubble. Mashiz sprawled over the foothills of the Dilbat Mountains. At the eastern edge of the city was a marketplace big enough all by itself to swallow Serrhes. Now it boiled like an anthill knocked down by a small boy. All the merchants who had never imagined Sharbaraz's troopers could enter the capital—and there seemed to be quite a few of them—now were trying to hide their goods, and often themselves, too.

"Too late for that," Sharbaraz said, pointing ahead. "I wonder how big an indemnity to set on them for doing business as usual under my thief of a cousin." His laugh held a predatory note. "They're wondering the same thing, too."

"We can worry about that later, though, surely, Majesty," Abivard said. "First we need to take the palace and lay hold of Smerdis Pimp of Pimps."

"Aye," Sharbaraz said, predatory still.

He knew the way through Mashiz's maze of streets. Though the palace was an imposing structure of gray stone, other, lesser buildings kept blocking it from view, so Abivard might have taken hours to find his way to it down streets that twisted back on themselves like snakes, as if in a deliberate effort to keep newcomers from going anywhere on them.

The palace had an outwall formidable enough to make Abivard think once more of having to batter it down, but no soldiers paced upon it or shouted defiance down at the rightful King of Kings. All the gates, their timbers shod in iron, looked formidable, but they all stood open.

"He's yielded," Sharbaraz said in tones of mixed wonder and suspicion. He urged his horse across the open area in front of the wall. Abivard went ahead with him. So did the soldiers who had accompanied them through the city.

Abivard was about halfway across the open area when everything went black.

It did not feel as if he had been stricken blind. Rather, night—moonless, starless, lightless—seemed to have fallen on Mashiz. His horse snorted and stopped dead. In an odd way, that reassured him: if the animal was dumbfounded, too, the trouble did not lie inside his own eyes.

"Majesty?" he called to Sharbaraz a few feet away.

"Abivard?" the rightful King of Kings replied. "Is that you? I can hear your voice, but I can't see you."

"I can't see anything," Abivard said. "Can you?"

"Now that you mention it, no." Sharbaraz raised his voice to call to his soldiers. "Can anyone see anything?"

Several people said no. Several others were shouting things that weren't answers but that also meant no. Abivard stared through the darkness that filled his eyes, seeking without success to find light. He also stared with his ears, trying to have them serve for the sense that had failed him. With them he had better luck. Shouts and screams came not only from near but also from as far as he could hear.

"The whole city's gone black," he exclaimed.

"You're right, I think," Sharbaraz said a few moments later, as if he had first paused to listen and to weigh what he was hearing. "Smerdis must have made the court magicians cast this gloom down upon us for his own purposes."

"Battle magic—" Abivard began, but then stopped—it wasn't battle magic, not really, for it seemed to have fallen on all of Mashiz's inhabitants—even on the animals—and not just on combatants. In battle, magic rarely bit on a man; his passions were too likely to be inflamed for it to be effective. Now, though, Sharbaraz's soldiers, victory already in their hands, had eased away from the peak of life-or-death excitement, and so . . .

"I pray the gloom does extend over the whole of Mashiz," Sharbaraz said. "If Smerdis' men can see while our eyes stay swaddled in darkness—" Abivard admired him for laughing, but he did not sound amused. "In that case, Smerdis Pimp of Pimps will enjoy a longer reign than I'd thought."

There was a thought to put fear in a man. Abivard wondered what he would do—what he could do—if horns suddenly blared and horses clattered across the cobbles at him. Swing his sword wildly in all directions until a lance he never saw skewered him? Better to yank off his helm and draw that sword across his own throat. That, at least, would be quick.

But no horns belled out a blast of triumph. All he heard around him was chaos. Slowly the fear of sudden attack faded. But fear did not flee—it merely changed its shape. Smiths at their forges, tavernkeepers with torches to light up their taprooms, cooks at hearths and braziers . . . how long before one of them started a fire impossible to fight?

If that happened, he didn't know what he could do about it, save to bake like a round of pocket bread in the oven. You couldn't flee fire any more than foe, not if you couldn't see which way to run.

"What do we do?" Sharbaraz asked. By his voice, thoughts like Abivard's had been running through his mind.

"Majesty, I don't know," Abivard answered. "What can we do? All I can think of is to stay as calm as we can and hope the light returns."

"Believe me, brother-in-law of mine, I have no better ideas." Sharbaraz raised his voice, called out his name and Abivard's suggestion, and added, "Pass my words on to those too far away to hear them straight from my lips. Say also that our sorcerers will soon overcome the darkness Smerdis Pimp of Pimps has raised against us." In a muttered aside to Abivard, he said, "They'd better."

"Aye," Abivard said. "I wonder how far out from the palace—or out from Mashiz—this blackness reaches." As soon as he spoke the words, he wished he hadn't. They made him imagine not just the magicians groping in darkness but the whole world so afflicted.

From the noise wrenched out of Sharbaraz, the rightful King of Kings—the veritable King of Kings, if light ever returned—didn't care to think about that, either. After a moment, he found words: "I'm going to ride forward very slowly until I fetch up against the wall. Then I'll know exactly where I am—and I'll have something at my back."

"I'm with you, Majesty," Abivard said at once; having something at his back suddenly seemed precious as emeralds. Foes might still come at him then, but from only one direction.

Sharbaraz's horse clip-clopped across the cobbles, one cautious step after another. Abivard didn't know how—or if—his own mount would respond when he urged it ahead. But it obeyed, as if relieved to find that the human atop it knew what he was doing after all. Abivard hoped the animal wasn't paying him too great a compliment.

He heard a faint thump from ahead, followed a moment later by an indignant snort. "Ah—I've found the wall," Sharbaraz said.

"Found it the hard way, unless I'm wrong," Abivard said, and Sharbaraz did not tell him he was. He eased back on the reins, slowing his horse even more in an effort to keep from imitating his sovereign. He didn't succeed, though; his horse fetched up against the wall before he knew it was there. In the absence of eyes, the other senses hadn't given either him or the animal warning enough to stop in time.

The horse let out the same sort of irritated snort Sharbaraz's beast had used. It turned its body till it was parallel to the wall, in the process scraping Abivard's leg against the stones. It snorted again, this time in satisfaction, as if assured it had taken its revenge. For his part, he was glad of the armor he wore.

"Is that you, brother-in-law of mine?" Sharbaraz asked.

"Yes, Majesty," Abivard said. "I wonder how long we'll have to wait till the light returns." What he really wondered, but would not say, was whether the light would ever return. When he got thirsty and hungry, how would he find his way out of Mashiz if he couldn't see where he was going?

"Those are all fascinating questions," Sharbaraz said when he posed them aloud. "I'm sure they're occurring to other people about now, too. I wish I could truthfully say I had so little concern that they'd never occurred to me, but I can't." He sighed. "I wish I had answers for them, too."

Time stretched. Since Abivard could see neither sun nor moon nor stars, he couldn't tell how much of it was passing. To give him some sense of duration, he sang and hummed and hummed and sang. That helped, but not enough. His ears told him other men were doing the same, and doubtless for the same reason.

Eventually he had to make water. When he dismounted, he was careful to hold onto the horse's reins, for fear of getting turned around and never finding the animal again if he let go of them. That meant he had to take down his armored breeches little better than one-handed and, worse, pull them up again the same way. "Amazing what you can do when you try," he remarked to the blackness around him.

Out of the blackness, Sharbaraz answered, "So it must be. I'm going to have to try to imitate you before too long. If I manage to lose myself, call my name and I'll come to the sound of your voice."

"As you say, Majesty. If I'd dropped the reins there, I would have asked the same of you."

"I wonder what happened to Smerdis' men," Sharbaraz said. "It's as if the God scooped us all into the Void."

Abivard drew in a sharp, frightened breath at that. The comparison was only too apt—Abivard wondered if it wasn't literal truth rather than comparison. Why the God should choose to do such a thing at a moment when righteousness was about to triumph, he could not imagine—but the God did not have to justify himself to a mere mortal, either.

Through the confused and often panic-stricken hubbub, through the ragged snatches of song that calmer men used to keep themselves enspirited, came a more purposeful chant, sung by many men at once. At first Abivard just noted the strong, calm music of it, which lifted his own spirit. Then he realized it was not in his own tongue, but in Videssian.

The chanters came closer. As they approached, he made out more and more words. He had heard the hymn before, back in Serrhes; it was a song of praise to Phos, the Videssian god of good—and, Abivard remembered, of light. Whether he believed in Phos or not, light was what he and all of Mashiz needed most at the moment.

His ears said the Videssians were entering the square around the palace. Their joyous song rang out, glorifying not only their god but also the sun, Phos' chiefest symbol, marked by the golden domes atop the spires of their temples and by the cloth-of-gold circles Videssian priests wore on the breasts of their blue robes, just above their hearts.

Then he saw the Videssian priests. For a moment, they were all he did see, striding through the blackness, all around them as if unaware of its existence. After that moment, his sight cleared altogether, and he saw the whole square. When it blurred in his sight, alarm ran through him, but he did not need long to realize tears of relief accounted for that.

Sharbaraz gave the Videssians one of their own salutes, his right fist over his heart. "My friends. I am very glad to see you," he said in Videssian, then dropped into his own language to add, "and you may take that however you wish."

One of the Videssian priests bowed in return. The late-afternoon sun gleamed from his shaven pate as if it were one of the gilded domes that topped his faith's temples. Seeing how close to the mountain peaks the sun had slid gave Abivard an idea of how long he had been without sight—quite a while longer than he had thought.

In fair Makuraner, the priest said, "Your Majesty, we are sorry we did not come sooner to your aid. This was a strong magic, and needed all our strength to overcome. Also, you Makuraners have a way of working wizardry different from ours, so we had trouble devising counterspells to deal with what had been done."

"However you did what you did, I'm glad you did it," Sharbaraz said. "Now we can enter the palace and cast down Smerdis once for all."

"Happy to be of service, your Majesty," the priest said, and bowed again.

With light restored, servitors began straggling out of the palace compound. Some of them recognized Sharbaraz. They went to their bellies, eating dirt before the King of Kings. "Now you come into your own, Majesty," Abivard said softly.

"Not quite yet," Sharbaraz said. "Not until the usurper is in my hands."

But none of the palace functionaries, for all their loud protestations of loyalty to Sharbaraz, admitted to knowing where Smerdis was. Sharbaraz sent soldiers through the palace. He sent eunuchs into the women's quarters, where soldiers could not go. No one found a trace of his elderly cousin.

Before long, though, some of the soldiers brought him three men whom he recognized. "Ah, the royal wizards," he said, while the Videssians and his own men bristled. "I take it you worthies are to blame for the recent events?"

Abivard admired his sangfroid. The wizards knocked their heads on the cobblestones. "Majesty, forgive!" one of them wailed. "Your rival compelled us to do his bidding, holding our families hostage to ensure that we did as he demanded. Forgive!" he repeated, and the other two echoed him.

"Perhaps I shall. Then again, perhaps I shan't," Sharbaraz said. "Tell me more, Khuranzim—tell me the purpose of a magic that darkened everyone's sight, for instance."

"Why, to allow Smerdis to escape unseen, of course," answered the wizard who had spoken before—presumably Khuranzim. "Over him the spell held no power. He tried to make us extend that over his soldiers, as well, but we told him truthfully that such was impossible: attempt to employ this cantrip as battle magic and you throw it away, for the spleen of men assailed by unseen foes would be so roused that in moments it would hold no sway over them."

Beside Sharbaraz, Abivard let out a long sigh of relief. The nightmare he and the King of Kings had feared could not have come true—although no small number of men would have died before the rest awoke from that nightmare.

He thought of something else. "Wizard, you say Smerdis had you cast this large and complicated spell just to let him get away?"

"Yes, uh, lord," Khuranzim answered cautiously. Sharbaraz he knew. He had never seen Abivard before and could not gauge how high in the affection of the King of Kings he stood. High enough to merit a soft answer, at any rate.

Abivard said, "By the God, why didn't he simply have you change his face, so he could sneak out of Mashiz with no one the wiser?"

"Lord, your words make it evident you are a man of sense," Khuranzim said, bowing. His lip curled. "The same cannot be said of Smerdis. To him, how large and showy a magic was counted for more than its mere effectiveness. When I suggested to him the very plan you named, he said he would cut the throat of my eldest son, give my principal wife over to his guardsmen . . . I am a potent mage, lord, given time to prepare my charms. Edged iron can be too quick for me."

"Can you track him now, to learn where he's fled?" Sharbaraz asked.

"Possibly, your Majesty," Khuranzim said, cautious again. "But some of the shielding spells laid on a King of Kings do not require frequent renewal, so detecting him by such means will not be easy."

Sharbaraz made a sour face, but then his expression lightened. "Never mind. Search your best, but whether you find him or not, my men will." His voice flamed with anticipation.

* * *

"Lord Abivard?" One of the serving women who had accompanied Roshnani and Denak from Vek Rud stronghold waited for Abivard to notice her, then went on, "The lady your sister would speak with you, if you have the time."

"Denak? Of course I'll see her," he said, though he suspected he sounded surprised. She had sometimes come to talk with him when he visited Roshnani, but he couldn't remember the last time she had asked him to come herself. "Lead me to her."

The wagon that had taken his sister and his principal wife through so much remained with the rest of the baggage train just outside of Mashiz. The serving woman went up and into it ahead of Abivard. After a moment, she beckoned at the entrance for him to follow.

Denak waited in her little cubicle, which was on the other side of the wagon from Roshnani's and fitted out in mirror image to hers, which made it familiar and disconcerting at the same time for Abivard. After he hugged his sister, he sat down crosslegged on the carpet and said, "What is it? How can I help you?"

"You probably can't," Denak answered bleakly. She sat down, too, leaning against the outer wall of the wagon with her hands on her belly. "I'm with child, and I'm going into the royal women's quarters tomorrow."

"You're going to have a baby, with luck an heir to the throne? That's wonderful!" Abivard exclaimed. Then he really heard the rest of what Denak had said. "Where else would you stay but in the women's quarters?"

"Staying there is one thing," Denak said. "Whether I ever come out again before they bury me is something else again." Her eyes flicked back and forth, like those of an animal caught in a trap. "I might have borne it before, when I knew no better. But I've been free—well, freer—awhile now, and the thought of being caged up again . . . I don't think I can."

"Why should you be? Trapped, I mean?" Abivard said. "The King of Kings let you travel with him, we all dined in Serrhes together . . . He's been good about keeping the promise he made back at our stronghold."

"Not as good as he might have been, but on the whole, yes, you're right." All the same, Denak looked at Abivard as if he had proved himself a blockhead. As if teaching a small boy his letters, she went on, "I am going into the women's quarters tomorrow. My husband will ride out in pursuit of Smerdis the same day. Until he gets back, do you think I shall be able to poke so much as the tip of my nose outside the women's quarters?"

"Oh," Abivard said, and tasted the emptiness of the word. He did his best to look on the bright side: "He's already sent riders after the usurper. The God willing, he'll be back in Mashiz very soon."

"The God willing, yes, but what if he's gone for months? Even if I'm resigned to spending some time in the women's quarters here, will he remember his promise—will he honor it?—when he gets back after he's gone for a long time?"

"I don't know," Abivard admitted. "I will say, though, that he strikes me as careful in matters that touch his honor. From the little I saw of Peroz King of Kings, his father was the same way."

"May you be right," Denak said. "The other thing I worry about is what will become of me in the women's quarters. I'll be a white crow there, not just because I'm the daughter of a frontier dihqan and not a princess from one of the Seven Clans, but also because I've been out in the world and seen things and done things. What will they think of me?"

"If they have any sense, they'll be jealous," Abivard said. "When Sharbaraz does come back, why don't you try to get him to give his other wives the same privileges he's granted you? If that works, how can they help but be grateful to you?"

"Knowing what goes on in women's quarters, I suspect they'd find a way," Denak said. But she leaned forward and kissed Abivard on the cheek, just above the line where his beard stopped. "It is a good idea. I'll try it; the worst he can tell me is no." She seemed to change the subject. "You'll be riding with Sharbaraz, won't you?"

"Yes, of course," Abivard answered.

Denak sighed, then lowered her voice. "And you'll be taking Roshnani with you, naturally—even though Smerdis fled south, away from Vek Rud domain, that's still the way around the mountains and back toward home." She sighed again. "How I envy her those extra weeks of freedom."

"It will be all right, Denak." Abivard summoned up courage of a kind different from what he had needed to face foes lance to lance on the field and said, "Surely it will be better than what you would have known at Nalgis Crag domain, even had Sharbaraz never ended up there."

Denak stared at him. Since she and Sharbaraz had escaped from Nalgis Crag stronghold, Abivard had hardly ever mentioned it. That he did so now, deliberately, made her stop and think. "Aye, it will be better than that," she said, but her voice was grudging. "Better, though, is not good."

"I didn't say it was," Abivard answered at once. "But nothing happens all at once, no matter how we wish it would. And if you work to make 'better' better still, your daughter—or her daughter—may think her life is . . . good."

"Maybe." At first Denak did not seem convinced, but after a moment she slowly nodded.

* * *

The pursuit of Smerdis went south, as Denak had said. Every day Abivard expected the hard-riding scouts at the head of Sharbaraz's pack to run his cousin to earth like an exhausted antelope. Every day, though, the hunt went on. The Dilbat Mountains were dwindling into desert foothills. Soon, if he so desired, Smerdis would be able to swing north and west.

"I wonder what Likinios would have done if he'd fled to Videssos," Abivard said as they encamped east of those foothills.

Sharbaraz looked at him like a man staring at a cockroach cooked into his bowl of lentils. "Now there's an . . . interesting . . . thought," he said after a pause in which he seemed to discard several more pungent descriptions. "I don't suppose he'd put him at the head of a new Videssian army—that would be too raw. More likely, he'd keep him in luxury at Videssos the city for as long as he lived, just to remind me I'd better behave myself unless I wanted trouble from the east. That's what I'd do in his boots, anyway."

Abivard nodded. "That's about what I was thinking, Majesty. Now I want us to be able to do something to Smerdis."

"So do I," Sharbaraz said. "If he'd yield himself up, I'd be grateful enough that I'd strike off his head and have done. I wouldn't even bother hauling him back to Mashiz to see how ingenious the executioners could be."

"Fair enough," Abivard said, then kicked at the dirt in frustration. "Where has he gone to, anyway?"

"Drop me into the Void if I know," the King of Kings answered. "When I set out on this chase, I thought it would be over soon. Now—" He stamped his foot, too. Abivard thought of what Denak had said. Before he could speak, though, the King of Kings went on, "I'm glad we brought the regiment of Videssian engineers with us after all. If he's managed to hide himself in a stronghold somewhere, they'll help us winkle him out."

"What with their baggage train, they slow us down," Abivard said in oblique disagreement. "Even the scouts can't get too far ahead of our main body, for Smerdis has scraped up enough followers to treat a small band roughly."

"I'm not worried about that. We'll run him to earth pretty soon, come what may," Sharbaraz said. "He's an old man, after all, and he was a mintmaster, not a horseman. He'll wilt in the saddle like greens in the stewpot."

He stood tall and proud and young and confident, every inch a proper King of Kings of Makuran. Seeing that kingly arrogance—all of it deserved, no doubt—Abivard had to remind himself that Sharbaraz had underestimated Smerdis before.

* * *

"I don't believe it," Sharbaraz said in disgust.

"I don't believe it," Abivard said in sympathy.

"I don't believe it," the commander of the Videssian engineers said in awe. Ypsilantes was a lean, dour, sun-baked man who would have been on the quiet side even for a Makuraner; for a Videssian, he was astonishingly taciturn. But when he stared up and up at the stronghold atop Nalgis Crag, he was as impressed as any Makuraner would have been.

Sharbaraz treated him with respect, perhaps more than he might have given to a Makuraner in the same position. He said, "Having seen what your men accomplished between the Tutub and the Tib, I refuse to believe anything beyond your powers. Surely you'll devise some ingenious way to force Smerdis to come down."

"Damn me to the ice if I know what, your Majesty," Ypsilantes answered. His quiet had nothing to do with the way he spoke Makuraner; he was quite fluent. He was simply one of those uncommon people who say only what's necessary and not a word more.

The King of Kings scowled. "Starving Nalgis Crag stronghold into submission would take years." Ypsilantes just nodded, which did nothing to improve Sharbaraz's temper. He clenched his fists. Abivard knew he would have liked nothing better than to see Nalgis Crag stronghold torn down stone by stone. But getting up to the stronghold, let alone tearing it down, would be the next thing to impossible.

Abivard said, "Majesty, it strikes me that the stronghold does have one weakness after all."

Ypsilantes grunted and shook his head; he got more meaning into that than some men would have with an oration. Sharbaraz freighted his voice with sarcasm: "Enlighten us, O sage of the military art. The distinguished engineer sees a perfect fortification. I must confess I see a perfect fortification. How gratifying, then, that you've found a weakness which evades us. And that weakness is?"

"Pradtak son of Artapan," Abivard answered at once. "The fortress itself could be all of adamant, not just stone and iron. With Pradtak leading it, it might yet fall. You've had some dealing with him, Majesty. Am I right or am I wrong?"

Sharbaraz did not reply at once. His eyes got a faraway look that had nothing to do with staring up and up to the fortress that crowned Nalgis Crag. Till that moment, he had been considering only the fortress, not the men inside it. He made small clicking noises as he thought. At last he said, "Brother-in-law of mine, it could be so."

"Knowing the man you fight is better than knowing the fort he fights from," Ypsilantes said—a very Videssian notion, when you got down to it. He turned to Abivard. "What of this Pradtak, eminent sir?"

Now Abivard hesitated. How to characterize his former brother-in-law? "He's . . . weak," he said after a moment. "He's not a coward, nothing like that, but he has a crust of bluster, if you know what I mean. Crack that and he's soft underneath."

"Like an oyster," Ypsilantes said. Abivard knew the word, though he had never tasted one. He nodded. The engineer rubbed his chin. "How to crack the shell, then?"

"Tell him what will happen to him when Nalgis Crag stronghold does fall at last—and fall it shall," Sharbaraz said, anticipation in his voice. "Not only do I owe him for giving Smerdis refuge, but also for the delightful accommodations he granted me year before last. Put enough fear in him and he'll do what we want. He must know what the executioners back in Mashiz can make him suffer before they finally let him die."

But Abivard shook his head. "Forgive me, Majesty, but I don't think you can put him in fear for himself, not that way. Even if we do take Nalgis Crag stronghold—" He was too polite to contradict the King of Kings directly, but he still doubted it could be done, "—how do you propose to take Pradtak himself? A step off the wall and he's cheated the executioners." He shivered a little. From the walls of Nalgis Crag stronghold, it was a long way down. What would you think about, the wind whipping at you, till the moment of blackness?

Sharbaraz glared at him. But Ypsilantes said, "Good sense," in a way that would have made Sharbaraz seem petulant, even to himself, if he disagreed.

"What then?" the King of Kings snapped. "If we can't even reach Pradtak, how are we to put him in fear enough to make him want to hand over Smerdis?" He meant it as a rhetorical question, and it was certainly one for which Abivard had no good answer. Clenching his fists, Sharbaraz went on, "Outrageous that a single dihqan should be able to defy the entire realm."

Had Abivard not defied the entire realm, Sharbaraz rather than Smerdis would have been mured up in Nalgis Crag stronghold. He thought it impolitic to mention that. But the complaint from the King of Kings sparked a thought in him. "Majesty, you're right: all the realm is yours, while Pradtak holds but the one domain here. If you were to begin to wreck it, most methodically, leaving him with the prospect of holding nothing but the stronghold once you were through—"

With an engineer's practicality, Ypsilantes said, "He is up high. He can see a long, long way. Every village that burned—"

Sharbaraz didn't answer right away. Abivard had learned better than to push him too hard, especially now that he was coming into full awareness of his power. He waited to hear what the King of Kings would say. "We'll try it," Sharbaraz declared at last. "First, though, we shall warn Pradtak of exactly what we intend. If he chooses to sacrifice his domain for Smerdis Pimp of Pimps, let the blame rest on his head."

"As you say, Majesty." Abivard nodded. "The God willing, he'll yield to the threat alone and not make us carry it out"

"He will if he cares a fig for his domain," Sharbaraz said. "And I know the perfect envoy from this force to put our terms to him, too."

"Who's that, Majesty?" After getting his idea, Abivard hadn't taken it any farther.

Sharbaraz clicked his tongue between his teeth, as if to say Abivard had disappointed him. He stabbed out a forefinger. "You."

* * *

Abivard held the truce shield high as he rode the narrow, winding track up toward Nalgis Crag stronghold. He wished he had a surefooted mule or donkey under him rather than his horse. Prestige forbade it, of course. If his horse slipped and he fell, he would die of prestige. That was far from the most common cause of death in Makuran, but it was also far from unknown.

He felt very much alone. If Pradtak wanted to seize him, too, and hold him as a hostage to try to twist Sharbaraz's will, he could. Abivard didn't think that would have any effect on the King of Kings, and didn't care to think about the effect it would have on him.

He had already passed several of the garrisons on the lower, less steep parts of Nalgis Crag. Sharbaraz's army could conceivably have driven them out of their positions, though it would have hurt itself badly in the driving. As for the barrier ahead and the men who stood guard beyond it . . .

A warrior scrambled over the stones. "What would you?"

Abivard flourished the shield of truce. "I come with a warning from Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase, as to what will befall Nalgis Crag domain if the dihqan Pradtak fails to yield up the rebel Smerdis to him. I am ordered to deliver this warning to Pradtak personally."

"You wait here," the man said. "Who are you, that I may give your name to my lord the dihqan?"

"Abivard son of Godarz, once his brother-in-law," Abivard answered.

Pradtak's man stiffened, as if unexpectedly stung by a wasp. Abivard stiffened, too. He had dreaded that question. Pradtak was liable to have left orders that he be killed out of hand. But evidently not; the warrior said, "I shall take the dihqan your words. Wait." Rather jerkily, he climbed back over the stones that could rain down on attackers and hurried toward the stronghold.

Abivard dismounted, fed his horse some dates, and brushed down the animal. He did his best to ignore the men watching him from behind the heaped stones—and the ones he had already passed, the ones who could block him from returning to friends and safety. It wasn't easy, and grew harder as time crawled by.

He looked up the ever steeper slope toward the stronghold. His patience was at last rewarded when he caught sight of two men riding slowly in his direction. After a few minutes, he knew one of them was the officer who had gone up to tell Pradtak he would come. Then he recognized Pradtak, too.

His former brother-in-law scrambled over the stony barrier between them and approached. Behind the barrier, Pradtak's men waited with drawn bows. If Abivard thought to try anything, he would be pincushioned before he could. Since he didn't, he bowed to Pradtak and said, "The God give you good day. You're moving very well; I'm glad the ankle has healed as it should."

"It doesn't trouble me much any more, not so far as moving goes," Pradtak answered. "But when rain or bad weather is coming, I always know it a day before anyone else in the stronghold." He fixed Abivard with a suspicious stare. "You didn't ride up here to talk about the state of my leg."

"That's true," Abivard said. "I came up here to demand in the name of Sharbaraz King of Kings, may his years be many and his realm increase, who is my brother-in-law through my sister Denak whom you will no doubt recall, the person of the usurper Smerdis."

"I don't give a moldy date for what Sharbaraz demands," Pradtak said, snapping his fingers in contempt. "He's nothing but a renunciate, and Smerdis the proper King of Kings. And I don't give a moldy date about you, either. The sooner you drop into the Void, the happier I'll be. Have you forgotten it's war to the knife between us? Only your truce shield and my generosity keep me from ordering you slain this instant."

He puffed out his chest, obviously sure he had made Abivard afraid. Having seen him bluster before, though, Abivard was less than impressed. He said, "Sharbaraz King of Kings will spare you even though you imprisoned him, providing you yield up the usurper. If you don't, your domain will pay the price for it—and so will you, once he starves you out."

Pradtak snapped his fingers again. "That for Sharbaraz and his threats, and you may tell him I said so. If he proposes to take Nalgis Crag stronghold, I wish him joy of the attempt."

"But Nalgis Crag stronghold is not all of Nalgis Crag domain," Abivard answered. He told Pradtak what he and Sharbaraz had worked out, adding, "By the time we're through with your lands, a crow that flies across them will have to carry its own provisions. I warn you, heed what I say."

Pradtak's face darkened with fury. Now Abivard knew fear, fear that Pradtak would be enraged enough to forget the shield of truce and the generosity he had averred only moments before. "I shall not give Smerdis up," Pradtak said thickly. "He has my oath of loyalty, which I honor yet."

"He lied as to the terms under which you swore it," Abivard said, "for Sharbaraz King of Kings did not give up the throne of his own free will. Thus the oath has no true hold on you."

"You might as well be a Videssian, like the ones to whom Sharbaraz sold his soul for a chance to steal the realm," Pradtak said. "I don't care what you claim—I shall not surrender Smerdis to you."

"Your domain will pay the price for your stubbornness, and so will you, when eventually you yield to the King of Kings," Abivard warned. "Think twice, think three times, on what you do today, Pradtak."

He didn't want to push his former brother-in-law too far, lest he push Pradtak into a place from which he could not extricate himself. Thus he spoke as softly as he could, within the limits Sharbaraz had set him. But it was not soft enough. Pradtak shouted, "Go down to your master and tell him I'll never wear his livery."

Abivard could not resist a parting shot. "Why should that worry you, when you wore his seeming for a couple of days?" He wheeled his horse and rode down Nalgis Crag, away from the curses Pradtak hurled after him.

Sharbaraz looked gloomy when Abivard returned emptyhanded. He said, "If that pompous fool thinks I'm bluffing, I'll have to show him how wrong he is. I hate it—his subjects are my subjects, too—but I will have Smerdis from him, come what may."

Abivard rode with the party that fired the village at the base of Nalgis Crag. The people there had been warned of what was coming; most of them were already on the road, carrying such belongings and treasures as they could, when the soldiers came into their village. A few stragglers still remained behind, though. One of them, an old woman, shook her fist at the jingling horsemen. "The God and the Four curse you for harming us who never harmed you," she cried, her voice mushy because she had no teeth.

"Go on, grandmother, take yourself out of here," Abivard said. His left hand twisted to turn aside the curse. "Blame your lord, for not giving Sharbaraz King of Kings the fugitive who is his by rights."

"If you blame Lord Pradtak, burn Lord Pradtak," the old woman retorted. But Sharbaraz's army could not do that, not with the dihqan impregnable inside Nalgis Crag stronghold, so Pradtak's subjects would have to suffer in his stead. Still cursing and bemoaning her fate, the woman shouldered a blanket wrapped around her few meager possessions and trudged after the rest of the villagers.

"I don't envy these folk," Abivard said. "If Pradtak holds to his purpose, we may have to burn them out again and again."

One of the horsemen passed out torches. Another got a fire going in the center of the market square. When flames crackled there, Abivard thrust the head of his torch into them, then waved it in the air to bring it to full life. He touched it to the thatched roof of a nearby house. The dry straw caught almost at once. Flames ran toward the crown of the roof; burning straw fell down into the building to ignite whatever was inside.

A couple of dogs sat in the square, not far from the fire the trooper had set. They howled disconsolately, breaking off only to sneeze and snort now and again as the smoke grew thicker. Abivard watched the soldiers torch the village. Some of them went at it with real enjoyment, ducking into houses to emerge with jars of wine or with trinkets for camp followers, then burning with whoops of glee the places they had just looted. Others simply set a fire, went on to another building, and did it again.

In the end, Abivard couldn't see that it mattered much one way or the other. The village burned.

Coughing, his eyes streaming from the smoke, he rode with the rest of the incendiary party back to camp. The black column of smoke that rose from the village's funeral pyre climbed higher than the summit of Nalgis Crag. The wind whipped it and frayed it and eventually dissipated it, but the smell of the burning must surely have reached the stronghold.

Pradtak, though, made no move to surrender Smerdis.

When morning came, Sharbaraz sent Abivard out with another troop of horsemen to burn down the village next nearest to Nalgis Crag—about a farsang off to the north. A shower of arrows greeted them when they arrived. A couple of men and a horse were wounded. "Forward!" Abivard cried. The troopers rode into town full of grim determination. More arrows fell among them, wounding another horse. In this kind of fight, horses were not much use. Armored men were. Once they knocked down a few doors and killed the defenders inside, the fight went out of the rest of the people in the village.

Abivard barely kept his soldiers from slaughtering them just the same. "They had a right to fight," he insisted. "No one warned them there'd be a massacre afterward if they did. Next time, though—"

He drove the villagers out of their homes with only the clothes on their backs and a chunk of pocket bread and a wine jar each. After that, the smoke rose into the air again, a pillar even thicker and darker than the one that had gone up the day before. The troopers went about their business with a single-mindedness they hadn't shown in the other village; they wasted no time on horseplay here.

Sharbaraz nodded when Abivard told him what he had done. "That was just right, brother-in-law of mine. Tomorrow, if we need to go out tomorrow, we'll tell them they may leave with what they can carry if they offer no resistance. Otherwise, we'll treat it as war in all ways." He looked up toward Nalgis Crag stronghold. "With any luck at all, Pradtak will see he'll have no domain left if he keeps the usurper much longer."

But a village to the south went up in smoke the next day. The people there left sullenly but without fighting the King of Kings' lancers, who went out in greater force. The day after that, villagers in a fourth hamlet had to be overcome in battle—and were.

Along with the houses, vines and pistachio trees also burned. Sharbaraz had meant what he said: Pradtak might keep Nalgis Crag stronghold for a long time, but nothing in the domain except for the stronghold would be worth having once the soldiers and their torches were done.

On the fifth day, the village of Gayy, the one Sharbaraz had known of and exploited during his escape from the stronghold, was given over to the flames. Sighing, he said, "Whatever I learned about the town will have to be rewritten."

His incendiaries were about to ride out for their sixth day of devastation when a man bearing a shield of truce came down from Nalgis Crag and prostrated himself before him. After the ritual eating of dirt, the fellow said, "Majesty, may your years be many and your realm increase. If Lord Pradtak surrenders to you the person of your cousin Smerdis, will you forgive him whatever transgressions he may in your mind have committed, leave off destroying his domain, and confirm not only his safety but his tenure as dihqan here?"

"I hate to give him so much," Sharbaraz said. But when he glanced at Abivard, Abivard nodded. Sharbaraz frowned, irresolute, but finally said, "Very well. For the sake of ending this civil war, I will. Let the usurper be brought to me before noon today and all shall be as Pradtak says." The dihqan's envoy rode back toward Nalgis Crag at a gallop. Sharbaraz turned back to Abivard and said, "I may forgive, but drop me into the Void if I forget."

Abivard took that to mean Pradtak would be wise to stay up in Nalgis Crag stronghold the rest of his mortal days unless he wanted those days abruptly curtailed. The thought slid out of his mind almost as soon as it formed, overwhelmed by surging relief that the long struggle which had torn Makuran apart soon would at last be over.

He was also consumed with curiosity to learn—finally—what the man who had taken Sharbaraz's throne looked like. Long before the sun reached its high point in the sky, three men rode down from Nalgis Crag: two warriors leading a graybeard who had been tied onto a mule. Once Smerdis was in Sharbaraz's hands, the soldiers didn't wait around to learn what sort of reception they would get from the King of Kings. Like Pradtak's earlier spokesman, they galloped back toward safety.

Though Smerdis was unkempt and wearing only a dirty caftan, the family link among him, Peroz, and Sharbaraz was easy to see. He did his best to hide the fear he had to feel.

"Well, cousin, what have you to say for yourself?" Sharbaraz asked him.

"Only that I should have taken your head along with your throne," Smerdis answered. His voice was almost as mushy as that of the old woman in the village; he had lost a good many teeth.

"A mistake I will not imitate," Sharbaraz said. "But you have more spirit than I credited to you. I'll just shorten you and have done."

Smerdis nodded. Sharbaraz's officers gathered round to witness the execution. One of his men cut Smerdis' bonds and helped him off the mule. He got down on all fours and stretched out his neck for the sword. It bit. His body convulsed briefly. Had he lived as well as he died, he might have made a worthy King of Kings.

"It's over," Sharbaraz said.

 

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