Not only the capital of Makuran loomed ahead. Closer and perhaps more tempting were the tents that marked the encampment of Smerdis' men. "I'll castrate anybody who thinks of loot before victory," Abivard said. "First we win, then we plunder."
As far as he was concerned, the prospect of entering Mashiz was worth more than any booty he could pull from the camp. Other, poorer men, though, were liable to think of silver before victory.
Smerdis' army, the last army that could hold Sharbaraz out of his capital, began to break up. Here and there knots of determined men still fought on, although they had to know victory was hopeless. But others fled, some back toward Mashiz, others over the badlands, hoping their foes would be too busy to pursue them. And still others, as they had between the Tib and the Tutub, threw away their weapons and gave up the fight.
Abivard shouted for some Videssians to take charge of the prisoners. "That's well done," Sharbaraz said, recognizing his voice.
"Thank you, Majesty," he answered. "My thought was that they won't be as hot for revenge as our men." He rode closer to the rightful King of Kings before quietly adding, "And the fewer of them who go into Mashiz with our men, the better."
"Aye, that's just right," Sharbaraz agreed. "They've been all we could ask for as allies-more than I looked for them to be, the God knows. But Mashiz is ours; we can reclaim it on our own." Bitterness crossed his face for a moment.
"The Videssians have sacked Mashiz a couple of times, while we've never made our way into Videssos the city. What I wouldn't give to be the King of Kings who changed that."
"Oh, indeed," Abivard said, quietly still. "Not tomorrow, though."
"No." Sharbaraz nodded at that. "But I'm willing to bet Videssos will give us the chance before too many years go by, however well we work with father and son of the Maniakes clan. As you say, first things first." He booted his horse in the ribs, wanting to lead his army into Mashiz. The capital lay less than a quarter of a farsang-a quarter hour's ride-to the west.
Abivard kicked his own mount up to a fast trot to keep pace with his sovereign. "Will we have more fighting to do inside the city?" he asked.
"I hope not," Sharbaraz said. "With any sort of luck, his army will have gone to pieces. But the palace is a formidable place. If he has men willing to fight for him, he could hold out a long time there."
"The Videssians and their siege engines-" Abivard began.
Sharbaraz shook his head. "No, by the God," he said harshly. "If they pound the usurper's men or the works he threw up against me, well and good. But the palace doesn't belong to Smerdis-it's mine, just as Mashiz is ours. I don't want it wrecked if I can find any way around that; I want to live in it after I take Mashiz, as I did before Smerdis stole the throne."
"Very well, Majesty," Abivard said, humbled. To him, the palace was just another military target. To Sharbaraz, it was home.
On they rode. The closer they got, the bigger Mashiz looked to Abivard. It dwarfed Serrhes, which was the only city into which he had ever gone. The towns of the land of the Thousand Cities might well have been as crowded, but they weren't large, not with each one sitting atop a mound made from generations of its own rubble. Mashiz sprawled over the foothills of the Dilbat Mountains. At the eastern edge of the city was a marketplace big enough all by itself to swallow Serrhes. Now it boiled like an anthill knocked down by a small boy. All the merchants who had never imagined Sharbaraz's troopers could enter the capital-and there seemed to be quite a few of them-now were trying to hide their goods, and often themselves, too.
"Too late for that," Sharbaraz said, pointing ahead. "I wonder how big an indemnity to set on them for doing business as usual under my thief of a cousin." His laugh held a predatory note. "They're wondering the same thing, too."
"We can worry about that later, though, surely, Majesty," Abivard said. "First we need to take the palace and lay hold of Smerdis Pimp of Pimps."
"Aye," Sharbaraz said, predatory still.
He knew the way through Mashiz's maze of streets. Though the palace was an imposing structure of gray stone, other, lesser buildings kept blocking it from view, so Abivard might have taken hours to find his way to it down streets that twisted back on themselves like snakes, as if in a deliberate effort to keep newcomers from going anywhere on them.
The palace had an outwall formidable enough to make Abivard think once more of having to batter it down, but no soldiers paced upon it or shouted defiance down at the rightful King of Kings. All the gates, their timbers shod in iron, looked formidable, but they all stood open.
"He's yielded," Sharbaraz said in tones of mixed wonder and suspicion. He urged his horse across the open area in front of the wall. Abivard went ahead with him. So did the soldiers who had accompanied them through the city.
Abivard was about halfway across the open area when everything went black. It did not feel as if he had been stricken blind. Rather, night-moonless, starless, lightless-seemed to have fallen on Mashiz. His horse snorted and stopped dead. In an odd way, that reassured him: if the animal was dumbfounded, too, the trouble did not lie inside his own eyes.
"Majesty?" he called to Sharbaraz a few feet away.
"Abivard?" the rightful King of Kings replied. "Is that you? I can hear your voice, but I can't see you."
"I can't see anything," Abivard said. "Can you?"
"Now that you mention it, no." Sharbaraz raised his voice to call to his soldiers. "Can anyone see anything?"
Several people said no. Several others were shouting things that weren't answers but that also meant no. Abivard stared through the darkness that filled his eyes, seeking without success to find light. He also stared with his ears, trying to have them serve for the sense that had failed him. With them he had better luck. Shouts and screams came not only from near but also from as far as he could hear.
"The whole city's gone black," he exclaimed.
"You're right, I think," Sharbaraz said a few moments later, as if he had first paused to listen and to weigh what he was hearing. "Smerdis must have made the court magicians cast this gloom down upon us for his own purposes."
"Battle magic-" Abivard began, but then stopped-it wasn't battle magic, not really, for it seemed to have fallen on all of Mashiz's inhabitants-even on the animals-and not just on combatants. In battle, magic rarely bit on a man; his passions were too likely to be inflamed for it to be effective. Now, though, Sharbaraz's soldiers, victory already in their hands, had eased away from the peak of life-or-death excitement, and so…
"I pray the gloom does extend over the whole of Mashiz," Sharbaraz said. "If Smerdis' men can see while our eyes stay swaddled in darkness-" Abivard admired him for laughing, but he did not sound amused. "In that case, Smerdis Pimp of Pimps will enjoy a longer reign than I'd thought."
There was a thought to put fear in a man. Abivard wondered what he would do-what he could do-if horns suddenly blared and horses clattered across the cobbles at him. Swing his sword wildly in all directions until a lance he never saw skewered him? Better to yank off his helm and draw that sword across his own throat. That, at least, would be quick.
But no horns belled out a blast of triumph. All he heard around him was chaos. Slowly the fear of sudden attack faded. But fear did not flee-it merely changed its shape. Smiths at their forges, tavernkeepers with torches to light up their taprooms, cooks at hearths and braziers… how long before one of them started a fire impossible to fight?
If that happened, he didn't know what he could do about it, save to bake like a round of pocket bread in the oven. You couldn't flee fire any more than foe, not if you couldn't see which way to run.