That struck Grus as unfair and unsporting. Ineffective? He wished it were. Avornans tumbled out of the saddle one after another. Hardly any Menteshe went down. The nomads weren’t doing enough damage to make Grus worry about his army, but they weren’t taking any damage at all.
And then, with wild whoops and shouts, the Menteshe who’d hidden in the almond grove burst from cover and thundered after the Avornans. At the same time, the nomads ahead stopped retreating before their foes and charged at them, also shouting in their hissing, incomprehensible language.
If the Avornan scout hadn’t spotted the Menteshe lurking in the grove, it might have gone hard for Grus and his men. As things were, Grus shouted, “Forward! Now we have the chance to close with them!” and spurred toward the Menteshe in front of him. He trusted—he bet his life—that the riders at the Avornan left flank and rear would keep the ambushers from throwing his men into chaos.
He knew he would never make a mounted archer. All he could do was draw his sword and wait for the two lines to smash together—if they did; if the Menteshe didn’t turn and flee once more.
Evren’s men didn’t. The nomads in front must have been sure the ambush party from the grove would do its job. By the time they realized the Avornans were neither panic-stricken nor beaten, it was too late for them to break off. Grus and his followers were right on top of them.
“For King Olor and Queen Quelea!” Grus yelled, slashing at a nomad. At closer quarters, the Avornans had the advantage. Their horses were bigger than Menteshe ponies, their chain mail better protection than the treated leather with which Evren’s men armored themselves. Now Grus’ men, also shouting the names of their gods, hacked Menteshe out of the saddle and took revenge for the long-range punishment their enemies had given them.
A nomad cut at Grus’ head. The stroke missed, the Menteshe’s blade hissing past less than a hand’s breadth in front of Grus’ face. The king slashed back. The nomad turned the blow. Sparks flew as his blade and Grus’ grated against each other. Before the Menteshe could strike again, another Avornan laid his cheek open with a backhand cut. He howled and sprayed blood and clutched at himself, all else forgotten in his pain. Grus’ next stroke made him slide off his horse into the dust.
Grus risked a look back over his shoulder. His men had turned on the warriors who’d burst from the almond grove. He breathed a little easier, seeing that the nomads weren’t going to do to him what the Thervings had done to Count Corvus.
All at once, the Menteshe decided they’d had as much of this fight as they wanted. When they galloped off this time, the flight was real, not feigned. One proof the Menteshe truly were running was that they loosed far fewer over-the-shoulder shots at their foes than they had before.
A long pursuit was hopeless. Grus looked around for a trumpeter and, for a wonder, found one. At his order, the fellow blew Rein in. Watching the Menteshe run away was one of the most satisfying things an Avornan army could do.
General Hirundo rode up to Grus. “Well, Your Majesty, they’re paying for everything they’re getting on this side of the river,” he said.
“That’s true.” But Grus had to point out the other side of the coin, as he had before. “They’re making us pay, too.”
“I know,” Hirundo said. “But we can afford it longer than they can.”
“Can we? I wonder,” Grus said. “This farmland they’ve ravaged will take years to get back to what it should be. The same for the lands the Thervings plundered again and again. We have to eat, you know. And without farmers to make soldiers and pay taxes, what are we? In trouble, that’s what.”
Hirundo pointed at him. “So that’s why you’ve made such a fuss about nobles who take over small farmers’ lands.”
“Of course,” Grus said, only to realize it wasn’t of course to Hirundo. “Either I’m King of Avornis, or all these barons and counts get to set up as petty kings inside the kingdom. I don’t intend to let that happen.” He looked south, toward the cloud of dust that veiled the Menteshe from sight. “I don’t intend to let those savages—or their master—ruin Avornis, either.”
“You can stop the nomads, especially if you fight as smart a battle as you did here,” Hirundo said. “But how do you propose to stop the Banished One?”
Grus started to answer. He stopped without saying a word, though, for he realized he hadn’t the least idea.
King Lanius nodded to the green-robed priest who worked out of a tiny room stuck in a back corner of the arch-hallow’s residence. Ixoreus had no ecclesiastical rank to speak of. His white beard said he never would, and that he didn’t care. Lanius felt more at home with him than with most people, though. The two of them shared a restless, relentless urge to know.
The arch-hallow’s secretary returned the nod with the air of one equal replying to another. “So you want to go into the archives, do you?” he said.
“That’s right.” Lanius nodded. “I’m interested in finding out how our prayers and services have changed since earliest times.”
Ixoreus blinked at him. Most old men had trouble reading, while they could still see things clearly at a distance. By the way Ixoreus leaned forward, he had trouble with making out things farther away from him—a lucky infirmity in a man who’d devoted his life to books. “Yes, that could be interesting, couldn’t it?” he said.
“I think so.” Lanius didn’t say he was trying to learn what sort of god the Banished One had been before his banishment. He had the feeling that the less he said about the Banished One, the better off he—and Avornis—would be.
“Let’s see what we can do, then,” Ixoreus said, slowly getting to his feet. His back was stooped; he leaned on a stick. His walk was a shuffle a tortoise might have outsped. Lanius followed without a word, without even a thought, of complaint. The priest, after all, was taking him where he wanted to go. He would have accompanied a willing, pretty girl with hardly more eagerness.
Not far from the altar in the great cathedral was a stairway Lanius had noticed before but never really thought about. He’d assumed it let priests come up more conveniently to attend the altar. And so, no doubt, it did, but that proved to be anything but its main purpose.
Having gone down the stairs, Lanius gaped in wonder. “I never imagined this was here!” he exclaimed.
“You don’t understand yet,” Ixoreus said, smiling. “This is only the first level.”
“How many are there altogether?” Lanius asked.
“Five,” the priest answered. “The cathedral’s a good deal bigger under the ground than it is on top.” He made his halting way toward the stairway down to the next level. As he began to descend, he said, “One of these days I’ll fall, and these stairs will be the death of me.” Lanius started to shake his head and disagree, but Ixoreus smiled again. “There are plenty of worse ways to go. By now, I’ve seen most of them.”
The archives filled the two lowest levels. Lanius’ nostrils twitched at the half musty, half animal smell of old parchment. “No other odor like that in all the world,” he said.
His words seemed to reach Ixoreus in a way nothing else had. “Well, none except ink, anyhow,” he said. He and Lanius eyed each other in perfect mutual understanding.
Down on the bottommost level, only a few lamps burned. In that dim, flickering light, Lanius felt not only the weight of the centuries but also the weight of everything built and excavated above him. After a moment’s fear, he shrugged. If an earthquake made it all collapse, in less than the blink of an eye he would be a red smear thinner than any sheet of parchment. What point to worrying, then?