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saddlebag and began to study it. He had never tried to work magic before, but
he could see it might be useful. His first look at the book of spells was not
reassuring. It was written in a cramped, allusive style: Koubatzes writing to
himself, for himself. To an outsider like Rhavas, one word in three, one idea
in three, seemed to be missing. He wondered if he could cast a spell with a
guide like this, or if disaster would eat him up because he didn't know enough
about what he was doing.
"Look at him," Marozia whispered to one of her strapping sons. "See how holy
he is?"
"He's something, all right," the young man agreed, also in a low voice.
Yes, I
am something
, Rhavas thought, but what?
He didn't know. Whatever he was, the thing was newly hatched.
What will I be when I finish turning into whatever I'm turning into?
That was a better question. The only trouble was, he didn't know the answer.
I have the truth, he told himself. If I didn't have the truth, would Koubatzes
lie dead in the snow? He remembered Ingegerd lying dead, too, but quickly
shied away from that. If she hadn't tempted me, if
Himerios hadn't thrown her at me, it never would have happened.
"Pray for us, holy sir," Illos said.
"I will pray that you and your whole family get exactly what you deserve,"
Rhavas said. Illos and
Marozia and their children beamed. They thought he meant a prayer like that in
a kindly way. He knew better. With the Khamorth on the prowl, what was
likelier than that this farm would be overwhelmed before long? If Illos and
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Marozia couldn't see that, they were fools, and they would get what fools
deserved.
He had his robes and his hooded cloak and his blankets. Marozia handed him
another one, plainly the best in the house, of thick, soft wool. "I wove it
myself," she said shyly, pointing to the disassembled frame of a loom leaning
against a wall.
"I'm sure it will keep me warm," Rhavas said. Marozia bobbed her head and drew
back. One of her sons set a mattress on the floor by the hearth. Rhavas lay
down and spent as warm and comfortable a night there as he had anywhere since
Skopentzana fell.
When he went out to the barn after a filling breakfast the next morning, he
found his horses had been well brushed. The youth who had done it said, "They
snapped once or twice, but I learned 'em who was boss pretty quick, I did."
"Good for you, and my thanks," Rhavas said. He blessed the animals in the
barn, not because he thought
it would help them but because the farm family had made it plain they expected
it of him.
They still believe in good
, he thought as he rode away.
They still believe in it, yes, and how much help will it give them?
Not much, he judged, not when they saw the barbarians riding toward them or
when they didn't see the plainsmen, but woke in the middle of the night to
find the farmhouse, loom frame and all, burning around them.
Rhavas shrugged. It wasn't his worry. Illos and Marozia had made their
choices. They'd made them, yes, and now they would pay for them.
He looked back over his shoulder a couple of hours later, and saw a column of
smoke rising into the air about where that farm would have been. Illos and
Marozia were liable to be paying for their choices even sooner than he'd
expected. He shrugged again and rode on.
* * *
Lykandos was, or had been, a town not to be despised: a long step down from
Skopentzana, two even longer steps down from Videssos the city, but still a
place that thought of itself as a local center. It had thought of itself so.
Now it was dead.
The north gate stood invitingly open. Only when Rhavas drew close did he see
how fire had scarred the valves. He rode into the town. The reek of burning
still hung in the air, though most of the smells of death still waited on the
thaw that now was not far away.
A dog trotted out of a side street and started at Rhavas, its tongue lolling
out of its mouth. The animal looked happy and well fed. Rhavas' stomach did a
slow lurch when he thought about what it had probably been eating.
Another dog came up beside the first one, and another, and another, and then
several more. More slowly than he should have, he realized a pack of dogs
could be as dangerous to him as a pack of wolves. To them, what were he and
the horses but more meat?
"Go away," he called to them. They paid no attention. He might have known he
had known they wouldn't.
He wished he had a rock or something else he could throw at them. Wishing
failed to produce one. And he didn't think he had long to figure out what to
do, because the dogs were starting to edge forward.
Rhavas no longer liked the way their tongues hung from their mouths. It didn't
look friendly. It looked hungry.
He pointed at the first dog that had come out. "Curse you!" he said, and the
dog fell over and died.
That did him less good than it might have. He could have intimidated a crowd
of men by knocking down one of their number. The dogs had no idea he'd done
it. A couple of them sniffed the dead one, but how could they understand
Rhavas had slain it? They couldn't, and he couldn't tell them.
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He pointed at another dog, one that looked as if it was at least half wolf. It
fell over, too. Then he knocked over a big brown dog with floppy ears. They
lay there in the snow. The others kept growling, working themselves up to
attack.
"Curse you all!" Rhavas gasped. He had no idea whether that would help him. If
it didn't, though, he feared nothing would.
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