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thawing it again.
He rubbed grease from his chin and licked his fingers clean. Let the Romans
try to live in this cold with their journeybread and porridges, he thought.
Red meat was all that kept up a man's strength here.
Instead of wiping it away, Batbaian smeared the mutton fat over his cheeks,
nose, and forehead.
"Helps against frostbite," he said. He spoke seldom, these days, and always to
the point.
"Next time, lad," Viridovix nodded. He drew his sword, examined it for rust.
In the cold and constant wet it spread all too easily. He scoured away a tiny
fleck of red, rust or dried blood.
"Wouldna hurt to rub the blade wi' fat, either."
A wolf howled in the distance, a bay chill as the night. One of the horses
snorted nervously.
"North again come morning?" Viridovix said.
"Oh yes." Batbaian's lips opened in a humorless smile. "Where better than down
their throats?
Richer pickings, too more flocks. More men." His one eye gleamed in the
sputtering firelight.
The other socket was a ghastly shadow.
The Gaul nodded again, but through a smothering sense of futility. Not even
killing could bring back what he had lost. "Is it any use at all, at all?" he
cried. "We skulk about pretending it's some good we're about, slaying the
spalpeens by ones and twos, but I swear by gods it's nobbut a sop to our
prides. It no more hurts 'em than the grain a pair o' wee mice steal'll make
the farmers starve."
"So what will you do? Fold up and die?" A nomad's harsh contempt rode
Batbaian's voice for the comparison and for the despair as well. "We're not
the only men in Pardraya who'd tie Varatesh in a rope of his own guts."
"Are we not, though? Too near it, I'm thinking. Them as'd try it did, and see
what we got for it. And as for the rest, there's no more will in 'em than your
sheep; they'll follow whoever leads 'em.
Precious few have the ballocks to go after a winner."
"Leave if you like, then. I'll go on alone," Batbaian said. "At least I'll die
as a man, doing as I
should. And I say again, even without you I won't be alone forever. Pardraya
is a wide land."
"Not wide enough," Viridovix came back, stung by the plainsman's dismissal and
wanting to wound him in return. Then he hesitated. "Not wide enough," he
repeated softly. His eyes went wide. "Tell me at once, Khamorth dear, would
you ride away from Varatesh the now och, and from Avshar, too for a greater
vengeance later, and mayhap one you might live through in the bargain?"
Batbaian's glare seized him, as if to drag his meaning out by force of will.
"What does dying soon or late mean to me? But make me believe in a greater
vengeance, and I will follow you off the edge of
Pardraya."
"Good, for you'll need to," the Celt replied.
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"A pox!" Gorgidas said, clutching too late at the top of his head. The
freezing wind tore his otter-fur cap free and sent it spinning over the snowy
ground. He ran cursing after it, his naked ears tingling in the cold.
The nearby Arshaum laughed and shouted bad advice. "Kill it!" "Shoot it!"
"Quick, it's getting away! Stab it with that thrusting-sword of yours!"
Recapturing the flyaway headgear, the Greek whacked it against his trousers to
get the snow off
and to work off his own annoyance. Then he jammed it back in place, and swore
again as a last, freezing clump came loose and horrified the back of his neck.
Skylitzes' mouth was twitching; Goudeles did not try to hide a grin. "Now you
see why all plainsmen, east or west of the Shaum, swear by wind spirits," he
said.
He meant it as a joke, but it brought Gorgidas up short. "Why, so they do," he
said. "I hadn't noticed that." He reached for the tablet on his belt it hung
at his right hip, where most men would carry a dagger. He scrawled a note,
writing quickly but carefully. When he set stylus to wax in this weather,
great chunks wanted to come away from the wood.
"That's nothing," Arigh said when he complained. "One winter a long time ago,
a man went out riding without remounts and his horse broke a leg. He tried to
yell for help, but it was so cold no one heard him till his shout thawed out
next spring. That was a few months too late to do him any good, I fear."
Arigh told the story with so perfect a dead-pan air that Gorgidas wrote it
down, though he added pointedly, "I have heard this, but I do not believe it."
If that sort of disclaimer was enough to let
Herodotos sneak a good yarn into his history when he found one, it should be
good enough for him, too.
Arghun hobbled out of his tent, leaning on Dizabul. Arigh sent his brother a
glance that was still full of mistrust. The khagan's elder son shouted for
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