He'd hoped they had but a single gangway and would be stuck in the siege tower after losing it. But they, or more likely the Makuraner engineer from whom they'd learned how to build the tower, had planned better than that. Out snaked another plank toward the wall of Videssos the city.
«Here!» Maniakes bawled to his men. «To me!» He snapped orders. Videssian soldiers carried yet another jar of inflammable liquid up to the very edge of the wall. At his command, they poured some of the stuff onto the stone where the gangway would reach the wall, then thrust a torch into it.
Yellow flames sprang up. Thick clouds of black, choking smoke made the Videssians pull back from the fire they'd started. That might have worked to the advantage of the Kubratoi, had they been able to put men on the wall then. But the nomads in charge of the gangway halted with it half-extended, not daring to push it forward into the flames.
«Come on!» Maniakes shouted again. «Don't you want to see the rest of the welcome we have waiting?»
He didn't know whether they heard him or not. If they did hear, he didn't know whether they understood. What he did know was that the gangway advanced no farther. Through the blowing smoke, he saw the Kubratoi pull it back into the tower. And then, so slowly that at first he did not believe what his eyes told him, the tower drew back from the Silver Gate. The other surviving towers were also moving away from the wall.
Now, for the first time that whole mad, terrifying day, Maniakes spoke softly, in tones of wonder: «By the lord with the great and good mind, we've won.»
And one of his veterans, a fellow with a scar on his forehead and a kink to his nose, shook his head and said, «No, your Majesty. They've just had enough for today, that's all.»
«You're right, of course,» the Avtokrator said, recognizing truth when he heard it. Also for the first time that day, he laughed. «And do you know what else? That will do nicely, thank you very much.»
No one disagreed with him. He did not think the soldiers deferred to his views because he was their ruler. He thought they kept silent because they, like he, were glad to be alive and not driven from the outer wall.
«What will they do next?» That was the elder Maniakes, taking the question his son addressed to the council of war and doing his best to answer it: «Whatever it is, I hope it won't be as bad as what they threw at us today.»
«I expect it will be worse,» Maniakes answered, «In today's fight, they were seeing what they could do. Now, curse them to the ice, they have a pretty good notion.»
Symvatios said, «The khagan will have a rare old time trying to get them to bring the towers forward again, after what we did to them this time. A warrior who's just watched a good many of his friends go up like so many joints of beef isn't going to be dead keen on heading up to the wall to cook himself afterwards.»
«Something to that,» Maniakes said. «A lot to it, I hope.»
Rhegorios said, «What worries me most of all is that these were the Kubratoi. No sign that many Makuraners were in the fighting today.» He pointed westward. «Best we know, they're still over on the other side of the Cattle Crossing. If they once reach this shore—»
«We have more troubles,» the Avtokrator broke in. «That wouldn't be the worst move for Etzilios to make, either. It would make his own men happier, because their allies are helping them, and it would make the attack stronger, too, because—»
The elder Maniakes took a father's privilege of interrupting his sovereign: «Because the Makuraners really know what they're doing.» That hadn't been what Maniakes intended to say, but it fit well enough. His father went on, «If we could, we really ought to find out what the Kubratoi and Makuraners are planning, not what we'd be doing in their sandals. It's not battle magic, not precisely…»
«They'll be warded,» Maniakes said glumly. «I'd bet a gold-piece against a copper that their mages are trying to listen in on us right now. If they learn anything, some heads that are in the Sorcerers' Collegium ought to go up on the Milestone instead.»
«If we don't try, it's sure we won't do it,» the elder Maniakes said.
«That's so,» Maniakes agreed. «Let it be as you say, Father. I'll summon Bagdasares.»
Alvinos Bagdasares said something startled in the throaty Vaspurakaner tongue. Maniakes, though of the same Vaspurakaner blood as the mage, understood that language only haltingly. He did not think, though, that Bagdasares had thanked him for the sorcerous assignment.
«Your Majesty, this will be a difficult conjuration at best, and may well prove impossible,» Bagdasares warned, returning to Videssian.
«If it were easy, I could pick a wizard off a street corner to do it for me,» Maniakes returned. «I know you may not get the answers I want, but I want you to do everything you can to find out what Abivard and Etzilios are plotting against us now.»
Bagdasares bowed. «It shall be as you command, of course, your Majesty.» He tugged at his bushy black beard, muttering in both Videssian and Vaspurakaner. When Maniakes caught a word—affinities—he nodded to himself. Yes, the mage would do his best.
To symbolize Abivard, Bagdasares came up with a shiny silver arket. «I have nothing similar for the Kubrati khagan,» he said unhappily.
«Why not just use one of our goldpieces, then?» Maniakes answered, sounding anything but gleeful himself. «We were going to pay Etzilios enough of them—but not enough to suit him.»
«The analogy needs to be more exact.» Bagdasares didn't notice that Maniakes was indulging in a wry joke—or else whipping himself for past failures. The mage finally chose a Kubrati saber. Its blade shone, too, though with a different sort of gleam from that of the Makuraner coin. Bagdasares looked almost pleased with the world after that. «Now I need but one thing more: you.»
«Me?» Maniakes heard himself squeak, as if he were a youth whose voice broke every other word.
«Certainly, your Majesty.» the wizard said. «You shall be the element transmuting the general to the specific. This is not Etzilios' sword, only a Kubrati weapon. The odds are long against this coin's ever having been in Abivard's beltpouch. But you have met both men. By the working of the law of contagion, you remain in touch with both of them. And that contact strengthens the action of the law of similarity here, linking these artifacts not only with their respective nations but also with the individuals whose plans we are trying to learn.»
Maniakes had hoped to get back to the wall in case Etzilios, instead of conferring with Abivard, simply decided to attack again. If that happened, though, a messenger would no doubt bring him word of it. He could leave when that happened. The urgent needs of battle would give him a good excuse for interrupting Bagdasares' magic. Meanwhile, he resigned himself to wait.
«Take the arket in one hand, your Majesty, and the sword in the other,» Bagdasares said. «Think on the two men whom the objects represent. Think on them talking with each other, and on what they might say in the situation in which they find themselves.»
«I've been doing nothing but thinking on what they might say,» Maniakes answered. «I want to find out what they did say or will say.»
Bagdasares did not reply. Maniakes was not sure Bagdasares even heard. The mage had begun the chanting invocation he would use for the spell and the passes that would accompany it. If a wizard did not fix his mind on the essential, his magic would surely fail.
It might fail even if he did everything perfectly. Bagdasares' frown made him look older. «Wards,» he said to Maniakes in a moment when his hands were busy but he did not need to incant orally. «I am resisted.» His forehead corrugated in thought. When he began to chant again, the rhythm was subtly different from what it had been.