He looked back over his shoulder. The rest of the horsemen on the right were following him into the water, shouting abuse at the Videssians on the far bank as they came. Maniakes' men quietly sat their horses and waited for the onslaught. Had they been Abivard's, he would have had them doing more: if nothing else, riding up to the edge of the canal and plying their foes with arrows. But they simply waited and watched. Maybe the might of the Makuraner force had paralyzed them with dread, he thought.
His head swam. He shook it and sent a curse down to the stinking muck that surely made every man who had to endure it reel in the saddle. If the God was kind, he would grant that no one would get woozy enough to fall off his horse and drown in the dirty water.
Here came the bank of the canal after what seemed like much too long in it. Abivard hoped no leeches were cringing to him or to his horse. He spurred the animal up onto solid ground once more. The red disk of the sinking sun glared into his face.
For a moment he simply accepted that, as one does with any report from the eyes. Then he gave a great cry of amazement and alarm, echoed by the more alert among the soldiers he led. They had ridden into the canal with the sun at their backs. Here they were, coming out with it in their eyes.
Abivard looked back over his shoulder again. Here came the whole army up out of the canal. There, on the far bank, the Videssians still sat on their horses, quietly, calmly, as if nothing in the least out of the ordinary had happened. No, not quite like that: a couple of them were sketching circles over the left side of their chests, the gesture they used when invoking their god.
Seeing that made Abivard's wits, stunned till then, begin to work once more: Whether well or poorly he could not guess, but thought started replacing the blank emptiness between his ears. He shouted the first word that came into his mind: «Magic!» A moment later he amplified it: «The Videssians have used magic to keep us from crossing the canal and giving them what they deserve!»
«Aye!» Hundreds, then thousands of voices took up that cry and others like it. Like sunshine burning away fog, fury ousted fear. That did Abivard's heart good. The angrier his men were, the less likely whatever crafty spell the Videssians had used was to seize and hold them. Passion weakened sorcery. That was why both battle magic and love philters failed more often than they succeeded.
«Are we going to let them get away with this outrage?» Abivard shouted. «Are we going to let them blind us with treacherous battle magic?»
«No!» the troopers roared back. «No, by the God! We'll pay them back for the affront!» someone shouted. Had Abivard known who, he would cheerfully have paid the fellow a pound of silver, a paid shill could have done no better.
«Battle magic fails!» Abivard cried. «Battle magic fades! Battle magic feeds on fears. Angry men don't let themselves be seduced. Now that we know what we're up against, we'll show the Videssians their charms and spells are useless. And when we've crossed the canal, we'll punish them doubly for seeking to befool us with their wizards' games.»
His men roared approval at him. The cavalrymen brandished their lances. Foot soldiers waved clubs and swung swords. Encouraged by their fury, he booted his horse in its armored flanks and urged it toward the canal once more.
The animal went willingly. Whatever the wizards of Videssos had done, it didn't disturb the beasts. The horse snorted a little as its hooves stirred up the muck on the bottom of the canal, but that was only because new noxious bubbles rose to the surface and burst foully and flatulently.
There, straight ahead, were the same Videssians who had watched Abivard cross the canal-or, rather, try to cross the canal-before. This time, the battle magic having been spotted for what it was, he would ride upon them and spear them out of the saddle one after another. Not normally a man who delighted in battle for its own sake, he wanted to fight now, to purge the rage coursing through him at Maniakes' trickery.
Closer and closer to the Videssians he came. Here was the bank of the canal. Here was his horse setting foot on the bank. He couched his lance, ready to charge hard at the first Videssian he saw.
Here was… the setting sun, almost touching the western horizon, shining straight into his face.
Once more he led his army up onto the bank of the canal from which they'd departed. Once more he had no recollection of turning around. Once more he didn't think he had turned around. By the shouts and oaths coming from his men, they didn't think they'd turned around, either. But here they were. And there, on the far-the indisputably eastern-bank of the canal the Videssian cavalry patrols trotted back and forth or simply waited, staring into the sunset-the sunset that should have blinded them in the fighting-at the Makuraners who could not reach them.
Abivard gauged that treacherous sun. If he made another try, it would be in darkness. If the Videssians had one magic working, maybe they had more than one. He decided he dared not take the chance. «We camp here tonight,» he declared. A moment later he sent messengers to seek Turan and Romezan and order them to his tent.
The first thing he wanted to find out was whether his officers had experienced anything different from his own mystifying trips into and out of the canal. They looked at each other and shook their heads.
«Not me, lord,» Turan said. «I was in the canal. I was moving forward all the time. I never turned around-by the God, I didn't! But when I came up onto dry land, it was the same dry land I'd left. I don't know how and I don't know why, but that's what it was.»
«And I the same, lord,» Romezan said heavily. «I was in the canal. There, ahead, the Videssians sat their horses, waiting for me to spit them like a man putting meat and onions on a skewer to roast in the fire. I spurred my own mount ahead, eager to slaughter them-ahead, not back, I tell you. I came up onto the bank, and it was this bank. As Turan said, how or why I do not know-I am but a poor, stupid fighting man-but it was.» He bowed to Abivard «Honor to your courage, lord. My bowels turned to jelly within me at the magic. I would never have been so brave as to lead our men into the canal that second time. And they followed you-I followed you-too.» He bowed again.
«I don't think I believed it the first time, not all the way through,» Abivard said. «And I thought an aroused army would be plenty to beat down Videssian battle magic.» He laughed ruefully. «Only shows what I know, doesn't it?»
«What do our own brilliant mages have to say about this?» Turan asked. «I put the question to a couple of the wizards with the infantry: men from the Thousand Cities of the same sort as the ones who worked your canal magic last year, and all they do is gape and mumble. They're as baffled as we are.»
Abivard turned to Romezan. «Till now we've had so little need of magic since you arrived, I haven't even thought to ask what sorts of sorcerers you have with you. Are Bozorg and Panteles still attached to the field force?»
«Aye, they are.» Romezan hesitated, then said, «Lord, would you trust a Videssian to explain-more, to fight back against- Videssian sorcery? I've kept Panteles with us, but I've hesitated to use him.»
«I can see that,» Abivard agreed, «but I'd still like to find out what he has to say, and Bozorg, too. And Bozorg should be able to if he's lying. If we do decide to use him to try to fight the spell, Bozorg should be able to tell us if he's making an honest effort, too.»
Romezan bowed. «This is wisdom. I know it when I hear it.» He stepped out of the tent and bawled for a messenger. The man's sandals rapidly pattered away. Romezan came back in and folded broad arms across his chest. «They have been summoned.»
Waiting gnawed at Abivard. He'd done too much of it, first in Across, then in the King of Kings' palace, to feel happy standing around doing nothing. He wanted to charge into the canal again- but if he came out once more on the bank from which he started, he feared he'd go mad.