“Natheless, we go on,” Crotus answered. The centaur no longer sounded so fierce nor so sure of what it was about as had been true a little while before--the wine, George guessed, was beginning to wear off. But, step by slow, frustrating step, the advance did go on.
The Slavic wizards’ magic went on, too. Seeming satisfied the centaurs would not be able to interrupt till too late, the Avar released the sorcerers he had called on to help him slow them. The wizards went back to their dance. He held the smaller magic by himself, while they built the greater. The hair stood straight up on George’s arms, as if lightning was about to strike.
And so perhaps it was. Clouds boded into being out of nothingness, though somehow they avoided covering both the sun and the nearby crescent moon. A harsh chant rose from the wizards. George ground his teeth. This was the moment. He and the centaurs had come so far, dared so much . . and fallen just short.
As clouds will, these formed vast shapes in the sky-- or rather, one vast shape, the shape of a middle-aged man of bull-like power, his arms and the cloak draped over them flung out wide. “Perun!” the Slavic wizards cried, and thunder and lightning roared. The Avar priest had called up thunder gods, too, but they were playful little things next to this brooding majesty.
After a moment, as if they had paused to make sure their first summons was a success, the sorcerers called out another name: “Svarozhits!” More motion in the sky drew George’s glance. Suddenly the moon was not only the moon, but also the blade of an axe borne by a heavenly warrior taller than the treetops. If the moon god brought down that shiny-bladed axe, surely it would cleave the whole world.
Along with their Avar overlord, the Slavic wizards capered in delight. They cried out yet again: “Svarog!” Where the moon had become Svarozhits’ axe, now the sun was also the blazing eye of a god enough like the other to be brother or father. George bowed his head against Crotus’ back. If that burning gaze fell on him, he would be nothing but ash blowing in the breeze.
And the Slavic wizards summoned yet another god to their aid bellowing out his name: “Triglav! Triglav! Triglav!” Unlike his comrades, Triglav was rooted to the earth, and seemed strong with a boulder’s great strength. He had three conjoined heads on a single neck, which perhaps accounted for the wizards’ summoning him three times. He looked in all directions at the same time, and carried a great sword.
Had the great gods of the Slavs fallen on the centaurs, the fight, such as it was, would have been over in moments. But the wizards had not summoned them into the world to deal with a minor annoyance, but rather to crush the great city that had resisted the Slavs and Avars for so long. And so Perun and Triglav, Svarog and Svarozhits swung their ponderous attention toward Thessalonica.
Not only did the walls of the city seem distant to George, but also tiny. The advancing gods would crush those walls underfoot, as a careless man might crush a child’s toy. “God, help Thy city!” George groaned.
He forgot all about the centaurs. Since the holy name was not aimed against them, it did them no harm. As a man will, George had sent up a great many prayers in his life, some to get this or that, some to avoid that or the other thing. As is God’s will, some were answered, some not. He had never had a prayer answered so spectacularly as this one.
From the walls of Thessalonica--and also, at the same time, from Father Luke on Elatus’ back, among the band of centaurs--shone a dear, white light, dispelling the gloom the clouds that were Perun had cast over the landscape. Having seen the Slavic gods manifest themselves on earth, the shoemaker expected he would also see God the Father, probably in the guise of an angry old man, appear to stand against them. Bishop Eusebius, Father Luke, and every other priest to whom he’d ever listened insisted God was uncircumscribable in that fashion, but, to George, uncircumscribable had been nothing but a big word. Now he began to understand.
In that glorious light, Svarozhits and Svarog all at once seemed pale, attenuated, like men stricken with consumption. Perun drew back his cloak of clouds, as if to protect himself from the divine radiance. Triglav paused, seeming frozen in his tracks.
But neither the gods nor the wizards of the Slavs were to be despised, nor, for that matter, was the Avar priest who led them as Bishop Eusebius led the Christian hierarchs of Thessalonica. The Avar shouted angrily to the wizards. The wizards screamed at their gods. And the gods regained a measure of the strength and purpose they had lost in the first fierce glow of God’s power.
Triglav stumped forward once more, sword held high. Perun unveiled his features, to show his furious face. Lightnings rippled round the edges of his cloud-cloak. Svarog’s solar eye cast a fierce light of its own. Svarozhits swung his axe, and the heavens seemed to tremble as the moon moved.
The Litaean Gate opened. Out rode a horseman, gorgeous in the parade armor of a bygone era. The Roman cavalrymen carved on the arch of pagan Galerius had gear rather like his. But he was no pagan: he glowed with the same light as had given the Slavic gods pause. “St. Demetrius!” George shouted joyfully.
As if naming the saint had given him fresh force, he lowered his lance and rode straight for Triglav. The Slavic god did not give back a step, but swung his savage sword and bellowed harsh defiance from three throats at once. Demetrius’ lance was aimed straight at his broad chest. The hooves of the saint’s horse thundered like--like those of a centaur, George thought. Though he rode one, he had almost forgotten the centaurs, transfixed as he was by the clash of greater powers.
But the centaurs were still very much in the fray. Crotus hurled a fist-sized stone at the Avar wizard’s head. It hit the sorcerer just above his left ear. He crumpled, limp as a sack of barley. The centaurs roared with delight. The Slavic wizards also cried out, in horror. Stones started fading among them--and striking home, too.
All at once, the marshy ground to which the fight had been transferred faded, returning it--and George, and the centaurs, and the wizards--to the lands the shoemaker knew. It was, he thought, at last a good day. Sunshine streamed down from a sky free of Slavic gods. No divine radiance shone forth from Thessalonica’s wall (where George could see Bishop Eusebius’ bright robes) or from Father Luke, but that was a fair trade. George looked around. No sign of St. Demetrius, but no sign of three-headed Triglav, either. That was a fair trade, too.
Now the centaurs were on solid ground once more. Where they had wallowed forward through mud to get close enough to the Avar priest and Slavic wizards to do them any harm, now they could gallop once more. They might have been an avalanche rolling down on the sorcerers. The Slavs fled from the fire, screaming. It did them no good. The centaurs thundered after them (trampling the unconscious Avar underfoot), flinging stones, seizing with hands, kicking out with hooves. From Crotus’ back, George slashed till his arm was sore.
The massacre took bare moments to finish. George looked around to see what the centaurs might do next. With some astonishment, he realized they didn’t have to do anything more. The wizards must have promised the Slavs and Avars that this last push, with their great gods brought forth to back them, would surely let them break into Thessalonica.
And now, with success promised, they and their warriors had faded. Having failed, and having faded so unexpectedly, the barbarians must have decided nothing could make their siege succeed. Avars in scalemail and Slavs in hides and linen began streaming away from Thessalonica. Here and there, a chieftain from one people or the other tried to persuade his men to hold fast. It did no good. Nothing did any good now, not in holding the siege together. George watched a band of Slavs mob a chief who tried once too often to hold them to the fighting.