When Rhavas asked what it was, Kolaksha answered in his own language: "Kavass." That helped Rhavas not at all. Kolaksha gathered his fragments of Videssian and did his best to explain. Eventually, Rhavas gathered that he was drinking fermented mare's milk. Not so long before, the news would have turned his stomach. Now all he did was hold out the drinking horn for more.
The woman who'd served him refilled the horn from a skin full of kavass . That would have revolted Rhavas, too; he was used to pitchers of pottery or metal. But the nomads had to travel light. Something that could be stored in very little space like the skin suited them better.
"How you kill Lipoksha?" Kolaksha asked when Rhavas' feeding frenzy at last gave signs of slowing.
"How?" By then, the mare's milk had risen to Rhavas' head—or maybe he still felt the aftereffects of the hemp fumes. Grandly, he answered, "Because I was the stronger. I said I would be, did I not?"
"But—you Videssian." That summed up the chieftain's attitude in three words.
"Not anymore." Rhavas did not try to make his voice grim. It came out that way by itself, which made it more effective than any histrionics could have. He went on, "The folk who raised me are my enemies now. And I will do what anyone with enemies would try to do: I will have my revenge on them."
As Kolaksha had before, he understood that now; higher sentiments might have baffled him. "You want us to help you with revenge, then?"
"Not just help me." Rhavas remembered reading that belching was a sign of good manners on the plains; it showed a man appreciated his food. He let out what he would have suppressed in Videssian company. Kolaksha's smile showed he'd done right. "Not just help me," he repeated. "Oh, no. I want you to share in my revenge. How would you like to take Imbros, for instance?"
Kolaksha understood that, too; a greedy light kindled in his eyes. But then it faded. "Take town slow business. Not get over wall. Videssian soldiers come," he said sorrowfully.
"If I give you Imbros, will you finally believe I am all I say I am?" Rhavas asked.
"I believe," Kolaksha said. "You not beat Lipoksha if you plain old pissant Videssian priest." He paused. That greedy light came back. "You give us Imbros, I believe more."
Just for a moment, Rhavas almost wept. This barbarous chieftain was willing, even eager, to let what he saw, what he experienced, influence what he believed. Could the priests and prelates of proud and civilized Videssos say the same? If they could, they never would have condemned me, Rhavas thought bitterly. He scowled. If he couldn't show them one way that evil was loose in the world, then he would have to show them another.
And he would show Kolaksha, too. Kolaksha would enjoy the demonstration. The priests and prelates of Videssos? That would be a different story.
Kolaksha sent riders to several nearby bands of nomads with connections of blood or marriage to his group of Kubrati. How such alignments worked among the Khamorth Rhavas did not know, not in any detail. He did gather that the other plainsmen would ride with Kolaksha's men against Imbros. If the city fell, they would share the spoils. Kolaksha would accrue greater glory for providing it—and for discovering Rhavas.
If, on the other hand, something went wrong . . . "You make I look bad before other khagans, I make you pay," he warned Rhavas.
Rhavas only nodded. He did not tell the chieftain he could kill him at a word. Make a man afraid and you also made him dangerous. All he said was, "You want to do this. I want to do this. Together, we will."
"How?" Kolaksha asked.
"Soon enough, you will see," Rhavas said.
Kolaksha fumed, but decided not to press it. "You say you kill Lipoksha, then you kill him," he said, as if reminding himself. "I not think you can do that, but you do. You say you do to Imbros, too. Maybeso you do it."
That was something less than a ringing vote of confidence, but he didn't nag Rhavas anymore afterward. Plenty of Videssians in positions of authority would have. Kolaksha might have been—was—a barbarian. That did not make him stupid, or a fool. Rhavas had not understood the distinction before he came to live among the Khamorth. He did now.
The plainsmen were people, not monsters. He hadn't grasped that before, either. They were husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles and cousins, friends and lovers and enemies, inferiors and superiors. Among members of their own tribe, they behaved as people ordinarily did. Some of their rituals differed from the Videssians', but the yhad rituals. They used them, with diminished force, among other Khamorth as well. To them, though, Videssians simply were not human beings. The word they applied to Videssians was related to the one they applied to mussels that used self-made strings to fix themselves to rocks in a river.
At first, that dismayed Rhavas. But what did Videssians think about the Khamorth? Nothing good. They called them plainsmen and savages and barbarians. They sometimes called them other things, too, things that suggested the Khamorth showed their livestock undue affection. Rhavas had believed that was so, or could be so. He saw no sign of it. In due course, being ever curious, he asked Kolaksha about it.
"Oh, yes, we know about that," the chieftain said matter-of-factly.
"What do you do about it?" Rhavas asked.
"We kill man. Kill animal, too. Animal have bad spirit in it. Let spirit out," Kolaksha said. Videssian shepherds also faced the death penalty for bestiality. Videssian sheep, however, remained immune from punishment.
Riders went back and forth between Kolaksha's tribe and those of his friends and allies. They were on Videssian soil, but they did not appear to know it, or to care. A few towns in the area still had imperial garrisons. The plainsmen avoided them but otherwise ignored them.
Plainsmen drifted closer to Imbros. Except for Kolaksha's band, none of them came very close. They were ready to pitch in if things went well. They were also ready to leave in a hurry if things went wrong. They wanted proof before they gave Rhavas more in the way of confidence. They wanted to see what he could do.
Yes, they were people, all right.
Dressed in nomad furs and leathers, Rhavas surveyed Imbros. Shedding his priest's robe felt oddly final. He might have been a snake shedding its skin. But what would come forth, he judged, was more different from what had gone before than the new snake was from the old.
Imbros was smaller than Skopentzana, larger than Develtos. Its garrison seemed alert. Once, when Rhavas rode too close, a catapult on the wall shot a dart at him. It missed, but the whoosh of the thing as it flew past made him hastily draw back out of range.
After fright came anger. He told Kolaksha, "Tomorrow, Imbros falls to the Khamorth, to the Kubrati who have trusted in me."
"How?" the chieftain asked once more.
"The walls will fall—much of the city will fall—and you can go in and take what you want, do what you will," Rhavas answered.
Kolaksha looked at him, as skeptical as any Videssian might have been. "Just like that?"
Rhavas looked back. "Just like that," he said. "Remember Lipoksha, Kolaksha. What I say I can do, I can do."
Kolaksha grunted. "We see." After a moment, he added, "We be ready. All Khamorth be ready." If this did go off as Rhavas said it would, he intended to take advantage of it. If it didn't, he no doubt intended to make Rhavas pay if he could. He probably could. Rhavas was even more alone among the nomads than he had been among his own people. Who would have imagined I could be? he thought.
He spent the night gathering himself. He knew what he had to do. He'd done it before. Once more. Once more, and he could start paying Videssos back for spurning him. When dawn came, he went looking for Kolaksha. The chieftain, as it turned out, was also looking for him: the sort of mishap that made people laugh in a Midwinter's Day skit. By the time Rhavas finally found Kolaksha, he was fuming, not laughing. "Are your men ready?" he demanded. "Are the other Khamorth clans close enough to join in after the walls fall?"