Three Khamorth looked them over from a long way off, far out of bowshot. The barbarians did not try to attack. Instead, they wheeled their horses and rode off.
"They go to bring back their fellows, very holy sir," Ingegerd said urgently. "You should curse them, that they may not do this."
Rhavas raised his arm toward the retreating Khamorth. After a moment, though, he let it fall. "The power is not in me," he said.
She stared at him. "Why not?"
"I don't know, but I can feel the curse would fail," he answered. She bit her lip but did not push him. That made her a paragon among women, even if he did not realize it. He was lost in thoughts of himself. Why was he so certain any curse he launched now would surely fail to bite?
The only thing that came to him was, I am not angry enough. He had been in a great fury when he cursed Toxaras, when he called the earthquake down on Skopentzana, and when he felled the Khamorth who rode at Ingegerd and him.
Now . . . How could he be passionately furious at men who were riding away? If they came back and attacked, that would be different. He hoped it would, anyhow. For the moment, he had no fire in his belly.
Other Videssians had spied the plainsmen, too. They knew the Khamorth hadn't trotted off because they were going to let the refugees escape. One of the men said, "We'd better find a place we can fight from."
That was easier said than done. The snow-covered ground they were crossing held no farmhouses, no barns, no fences. It was simply . . . ground. A small clump of pines off in the distance offered the only break in the monotony.
Ingegerd pointed toward them. "There we must make our stand, and quickly. If our main hope fails, we can make the best fight we may." By our main hope she meant Rhavas, even if the others did not fully grasp that. Some of them muttered about a foreign woman telling them what to do, but what she said was such obvious truth that they could not mutter long.
"Our trail in the snow will lead the barbarians straight to us," one of the dumpy Videssian women said sorrowfully.
"What difference does it make?" a man replied. "If we don't go there, they'll find us like so many bugs on a plate." That also seemed much too true, and painfully reminded Rhavas of his own thoughts after they left Tzamandos.
They were within about a hundred yards of the trees when someone looked back over his shoulder and said, "We'd better hurry."
Rhavas looked back, too. Strung out across the horizon were Khamorth riders. They came forward at a businesslike trot. Experimentally, he raised his arm again. He still felt no sudden access of power. Rage fueled it, yes, rage and fear—not the emotions he would have thought Phos would put in a man's heart. He was afraid now, and he was angry, but neither emotion bubbled in him the way they both had before. Maybe he'd been through too much, and lost for the moment the ability to feel deeply. Whatever the reason, there would be no curses any time soon.
Ingegerd saw what he did, and what he did not do. "No, very holy sir?" she asked.
"It seems not," Rhavas said.
"Then we shall fight." She sounded unafraid. "If you can, remember the boon I asked of you before and grant it me at the last."
"If I can," Rhavas said. "If I must."
Then the Videssians got in and under the pines. The spicy, resinous smell of them filled Rhavas' nostrils. Some of the men strung bows and nocked arrows. The prelate had no idea how much good that would do, or whether it would do any good at all.
He looked out past the trees. The Khamorth still came on. He searched for rage and fear in himself—searched for what might let him curse them and kill them or drive them off in dismay. Searching, he found . . . not enough. He felt curiously detached, removed from the scene, as if it were happening to someone else. He knew it wasn't, but couldn't make himself believe it.
One of the Videssian men said, "The women ought to get as far away as they can. You, too, very holy sir. Meaning no offense, but you're not going to be much help in the fight."
"I'll stay," Rhavas said, very conscious of Ingegerd's eye on him.
"No, go on," the man said, while his comrades nodded. "I don't fault your spirit, but you've no skill with weapons. Save yourself if you can. Maybe we'll hold out long enough to let you get away. Go on, curse it. The longer you argue, the worse your chances get."
His curse had no power to bite, not the way Rhavas' did—or could. Ears burning in spite of the cold, the prelate turned away. The two Videssian women were already stumbling deeper into the stand of trees. Ingegerd waited. "I will stand beside you, if you like," she said.
"Go on," he told her. "You might be worth more in a fight than I am, if—" He gestured instead of saying if I cannot curse. She nodded. He went on, "Even so, though, they are liable to kill me quickly if they take me alive. They will have their sport with you before they let you die." Sport I wish I had. He fought that thought down.
Not knowing it was in his mind, she took his hands in hers. "Then you come, too. No shame to you that you are not a man of your hands, not when you chose the good god's path rather than the warrior's.
Come. We will save ourselves if we can."
No one else was likely to have persuaded him. Ingegerd he obeyed as if he were a little boy listening to his mother. Behind him, an arrow thudded into a tree trunk—the Khamorth were close enough to have started shooting. A moment later, someone let out a bubbling scream. That arrow had struck flesh, not wood.
It all seemed very far away, very unimportant, to Rhavas. If the barbarians cut him down—well, so what? What was he but a priest shaken in his faith? Wasn't Videssos better off without a man like him?
Shouts and curses in Videssian and in the harsh, guttural Khamorth language erupted behind him. He looked back over his shoulder—and tripped over a snow-buried stone, measuring himself full length on the ground. "Oof!" he said: a singularly undignified noise.
Almost man-strong, Ingegerd hauled him to his feet. "Come on, very holy sir," she panted. "If you are going to flee, you must flee."
"I am—doing my best," Rhavas said.
He kept trying to listen as he stumbled through the snow. He did not look back again, though. He'd learned one lesson. If you are going to flee, you must flee. She is right. The shouts and screams at the edge of the trees were fewer now. What calls there were came mostly in the Khamorth tongue. The Videssians might have sold their lives dear, but not, he feared, dear enough. The barbarians were coming after those who had got away.
Ingegerd could have outdistanced him. He waved for her to do just that. She either did not see him or pretended not to. Boots thumped behind the two of them. Rhavas tried to go faster. He had little luck. The skin on his back tightened, as if that could ward off an arrow or the bite of a sword's honed edge.
He dodged behind a tree—and just in time, for an arrow surely aimed at him slammed into the trunk. He did peer around then, in fearful fascination. Two Khamorth were shouting at a third—the one who had shot. Maybe they'd realized Ingegerd was a woman, and didn't want this fellow to take the chance of killing her right away.
Now they'd seen the prelate from the front, and knew he could be no woman. All three of them smiled very nasty smiles. They could have flanked him out and shot him. Instead, two of them drew their swords and advanced on him. They'd have fun getting rid of him while their friend circled around him and caught Ingegerd. Then they would all have more fun, and then they would kill her.
Rhavas' own fate mattered little to him. That he'd let down the Haloga woman mattered enormously. He pointed at the barbarian who was going after her and screamed, "Curse you! Curse you, curse you, curse you!"