A few Videssians got away. He saw them running off to the east and south. In a way, that was good: they would tell the other imperials what the barbarians had done here today. But in another way, it was not so good: they would bring back soldiers to seek revenge. Rhavas went looking for Kolaksha.
The chieftain listened to him, then shrugged a broad-shouldered shrug. "We leave when we leave," Kolaksha said. "If soldiers come, we run or we fight. No soldiers now. Looting now. Killing now. Women now. Wine now." He thrust a jar of wine at Rhavas.
"You are a chieftain. You can give orders. . . ." Rhavas' voice trailed away. Kolaksha couldn't give orders, not the way a Videssian general or even a Videssian captain could. He had no force of law behind his commands, only force of character. If the other plainsmen—especially those not of his tribe—didn't feel like listening to him, how could he make them? He couldn't, and he knew it. Rhavas hadn't fully understood it, but he did now.
He felt betrayed. What good was a leader who didn't really lead? Not much, not to him, although the Khamorth didn't seem to mind. But what did they know? They were just barbarians.
They are an instrument, he thought. I have to play them. But how? No two strings on this instrument vibrated the same way. How could he get a tune out of it?
While he wondered, the nomads went on doing what they wanted to do. To his horror, he realized that was what they'd been doing all along. They'd got him to knock down Imbros' walls for them. Then they did what they would have done if they'd got in some other way. They were playing him, not the other way round.
He turned away from Kolaksha and left the ruined city. Not all his pleasure in Imbros' fall was slaked; he did have a measure of vengeance against Videssos. But it was not enough to satisfy him fully. He wanted something less savage, something more sophisticated, at his beck and calclass="underline" something like Videssos turned upside down and worshiping Skotos.
For a moment, he thought of journeying to Makuran, the only other civilized land Videssos knew. Not without regret, he shook his head. The long voyage was only a small part of what deterred him. The Makuraners had their own faith, that of the Four Prophets. Like any other Videssian, Rhavas reckoned it so much nonsense, but, from what little he knew of its ideas, it was full of the same foolishness as Phos-worship. It would not be easy for a lone man, and especially a lone Videssian, to overthrow.
What then? The only other tools he had left to work with were the Khamorth and the Halogai. The big blond barbarians in the far north would have intimidated him even if not for Ingegerd. They had wild gods of their own, certainly savage enough to have crawled up from Skotos' ice, but they were not likely to hearken to a Videssian preaching to them—no, preaching at them. The tale of Kveldoulphios the martyr showed that.
The Khamorth, then. It would have to be the Khamorth. But not these Khamorth, Rhavas decided. Horses were tethered everywhere near fallen Imbros. Men were supposed to have been detailed to keep an eye on them. Most of those nomads, though, had gone into the city to share in the looting and drinking and rape. That didn't surprise Rhavas. The plainsmen lacked anything resembling discipline.
He found the steppe pony Kolaksha had given him to replace the miserable Videssian horse he'd been riding. He also took two others, so he wouldn't wear down the one animal. And then, on his pony and leading the others, he rode away from Imbros. The disaster that had overwhelmed it was necessary but not sufficient. He wanted—he needed—more and better.
A sentry who hadn't gone into the ruined city shouted at him. He shouted back, not with words but just with loud noises. Those didn't do—the Khamorth hopped up onto his own horse and rode toward Rhavas, plainly wanting to know who he was and what he thought he was doing.
With a sigh, Rhavas said, "Curse you," and the plainsman slid off his pony's tail and lay on the ground, dead. Rhavas, meanwhile, muttered under his breath. He hadn't wanted to do that. It might tell the nomads in which direction he was going. It also gave them even more reason than horse theft to want to follow him.
Dismounting, he dragged the dead man behind some bushes. The pony he added to his own string. Maybe the nomads wouldn't find their fellow for some time. Maybe scavengers would have got to him by then, so no one could see he'd died for no apparent reason. Come to that, maybe the Khamorth didn't associate death for no apparent reason with Rhavas. And maybe, when they found him fled, they wouldn't look toward the northeast.
He hoped they wouldn't, anyhow. Wouldn't they think he'd sickened of what he'd done and gone back to his own folk? It seemed reasonable to him that they should. Whether what he knew of reason and what the Khamorth knew of it were related was apt to be an . . . interesting question.
In his saddlebags were wheat cakes and smoked meat. They made a good enough supper. No doubt the plainsmen whose horses he'd stolen also carried iron rations. He could keep going for a while. And, after night came, he shielded his campsite with some of the darkness impenetrable he'd used to such effect in the High Temple. To anyone riding past, it would seem like nothing but a darker shadow under the trees.
Murmuring a prayer of thanks to Skotos for the protective shield—adapted from one he would have used for Phos—Rhavas rolled himself in a blanket and slept.
Videssos still had a presence on the Astris River. War galleys like those that sailed the seas patrolled it. The Khamorth built no boats larger than canoes hollowed out of tree trunks. Had Videssos had more ships on the river, she could have kept the barbarians from crossing. As things were, the galleys harried them when they could.
When Rhavas rode down to the riverbank, he had shed his furs and leather and redonned his priest's robe. He had also shaved his head for the first time in some little while. He wanted the galleys to recognize him as a Videssian.
He didn't encounter one till the next day. It rowed up close to the shore. One of the crew shouted, "What are you doing way up here, holy sir?"
"I am going to convert the heathen on the far side of the Astris to the one true faith," Rhavas replied, which was true, but not in the way the galley's crew would look for. He went on, "I require passage across the river."
"Those savages? They'll eat you without salt," the sailor said.
"I fear nothing, for I have my god on my side," Rhavas said loftily—again, true but unhelpful to his audience. Then he added a bit of bluff: "The Avtokrator and the ecumenical patriarch will hear of it if you fail to aid me."
Even that might not have been altogether bluff, now that he thought about it. The skipper of this galley would certainly hear about it when people in Videssos the city figured out whom he'd taken across the Astris. And the assurance with which he spoke carried weight. The war galley grounded itself on the muddy bank. A gangplank thumped down. Sailors jumped out and helped Rhavas lead his horses up into the ship. One of the men said, "Looks like you got these beasts straight from the barbarians."
"I did," Rhavas said.
That impressed the sailor. "Maybe the Khamorth really will listen to you, then, holy sir. You're a braver man than I am, though, and I'm not ashamed to admit it."
Rhavas rapidly discovered he was a braver man than the war galley's captain. The officer fidgeted like a man coming down with the runs when the long, lean vessel beached itself on the north bank of the Astris. "Hurry up! Hurry up!" he cried over and over again, his voice unmistakably frightened. "If a troop of those savages come down on us while we're stuck here, we're all dead men—but we won't die fast enough to suit us. Hurry up!"