"I come to ask same question to you," Kolaksha said. "I come to ask, you are ready? We are ready. We wait. Now you do."
"Waiting is at an end. Follow me." Rhavas ordered the chieftain around like a prelate telling a newly ordained priest what to do. Kolaksha muttered to himself in his own language, but follow he did. He had a stumpy, splayed-out gait, his feet wide apart. Like a lot of Khamorth, he was bowlegged. Rhavas wondered if that sprang from all the time the plainsmen spent in the saddle. But he could worry about that later, if he worried about it at all. He pushed aside some bushes and pointed ahead. "The walls of Imbros."
"Yes, walls of Imbros," Kolaksha said impatiently. "How we get inside stinking walls of Imbros?"
"Like this." Rhavas pointed again. Bringing forth all his strength, he cried, "Accursed and downfallen be the city of Imbros, accursed and downfallen in the name of Skotos, lord of darkness and master of the world!"
Kolaksha shouted when the ground began to shake. He shouted again when the walls of Imbros broke to pieces and tumbled down. A great cloud of gray-brown dust shot up into the air, obscuring what was happening inside the city. But the grinding crashes that came through the roar of the earthquake itself said that Rhavas' prophecy was being fulfilled.
When the shaking stopped, Rhavas nodded to the Khamorth chieftain. "Send in your men. Let all the tribes send in their men. Did I honor my promise, or did I fail you?"
By way of reply, Kolaksha folded him into an embrace and kissed him on both cheeks. Rhavas would have liked that better if the barbarian had bathed anytime in the past year. Since he couldn't do anything about that, he endured it. "You do! You do!" Kolaksha bawled in his ear, capering like a bowlegged puppy. Rhavas could have done without that, too. He told himself the plainsman's heart was in the right place, anyhow.
Watching Imbros laid low, Rhavas felt his own heart leap and soar. He would have been happier were it Videssos the city, but he had done what he could do. This would tell Stylianos and Sozomenos and everyone else who had condemned him that he hadn't gone away. They'd thought they could get by with punishing him and ignoring him. They'd thought so, but they needed to think again.
"Come!" Kolaksha yelled. "Forward!" He lumbered toward the ruins of Imbros. Khamorth, mounted and afoot, approached the city from all sides. Rhavas didn't see how he could hang back. He'd watched the barbarians sack Skopentzana. He'd watched in horror and despair. On my head be it. Even now, the curse he'd called down on himself still bit him.
Here, though, he wouldn't be watching a sack. He wouldn't be trying to escape a sack. He would be joining a sack. And as for the Videssians whose homes and lives he'd just shattered—well, too bad for them.
Cry out to Phos, he thought. Go ahead. See how much good it does you. As much good as it ever did me.
An arrow hissed past his head. Someone in the wreckage was trying to fight back. Rhavas ducked. By the time he did, of course, the shaft was long past. Plainsmen started scrambling over the stones of the shattered wall. There had been screams inside Imbros before. Now new ones erupted.
An aftershock staggered him. He had some control over the first shaking. Once that passed, his earthquakes behaved like any others. Aftershocks from this one would go on for months, if not for years. Some of them would be big enough to do damage in their own right. When this one ended, he ran on toward the wall.
It had come down even more completely than he'd hoped. As he approached, he saw why: it was worked stone inside and out, but had a rubble core. It wasn't solid, mortared stone all the way through. Build on the cheap, will you? Rhavas laughed. You get what you pay for—and what you deserve.
Although not a particularly athletic man, he had no trouble climbing over the wreckage and into Imbros. Some of the buildings inside the town had fallen; others still stood. Rhavas laughed again to see steeples topped by gilded sun-globes toppled in the streets. Phos' temples had not proved immune to Skotos' powers. He had expected nothing different, and rejoiced to be proved right.
Iron belled off iron as a Videssian soldier who'd somehow survived the collapse traded sword strokes with a plainsman. Another Khamorth used both hands to throw a chunk of rock at the Videssian. It caught him in the ribs and almost knocked him off his feet. The nomad with whom he'd been dueling slashed his throat before he could recover. Gurgling and clutching at the gushing wound, the Videssian sank to his knees. There was nothing sporting about the way the Khamorth fought. Effective? That was another story.
But the plainsmen were after loot as much as blood. They descended like locusts on a jeweler's shop, and came away festooned with gold and silver chains and rings and bracelets. Rhavas wondered where the jeweler was. Buried in the ruins? Or just sensible enough to realize his gauds weren't worth his life?
A woman shrieked, high and shrill. Rhavas knew that sound. Sure enough, several plainsmen had her down and were doing what they pleased. Seeing him in clothes like theirs, they waved for him to join them.
For a moment, he thought of Ingegerd, and of his self-disgust afterward. But that was different. He'd really cared for her, and she should have cared for him, especially after all he did for her. Besides, then he hadn't understood the way the world worked as well as he did now.
This luckless Videssian? What was she but a body to him? Nothing at all. He nodded to the Khamorth and lined up with them. His turn came fast. It was soon over, too. He rose, fumbling at his trousers. A nomad took his place. That couldn't have made any difference to the woman.
He wondered if they would let her go once they finished their sport or get a last fillip by cutting her throat. He wasn't curious enough to stay around and find out. Whether the barbarians did the one or the other might not matter much to the woman, either.
A ragged-looking Videssian man still in his nightshirt pointed at Rhavas and cried, "You damned barbarian, curse you to Skotos' ice forevermore!"
Rhavas pointed back. "No, curse you," he said. The local had just enough time to realize a supposed nomad spoke perfect Videssian before falling over dead.
Taverns also proved favorite targets for the Khamorth. The plainsmen poured down wine as if they thought they would never see it again. Remembering the taste of the fermented mares' milk that was their usual drink, Rhavas had trouble blaming them.
Some of them, plainly, were out to drink themselves blind as fast as they could. Maybe they had friends who would watch over them till they revived. Or maybe they just didn't fear anything the Videssians of Imbros could do. Maybe they thought there wouldn't be enough Videssians left alive in Imbros to worry about.
And maybe they were right. Along with drinking and theft, the Khamorth delighted in slaughter. They shot, slashed, stabbed, or broke in the heads of Videssians by the hundreds—no, by the thousands. And they exulted in what they did in ways that would have turned the stomach of the most hardened Videssian bandit. Some of what they did turned Rhavas' stomach, and he'd worked worse than any Videssian bandit ever born.
This is what you wanted, he reminded himself. This is what all of Videssos deserves. He nodded. He knew that. Knowing it and seeing it acted out before him proved two very different things.