Bridge of the Separator by Harry Turtledove

Author:Harry Turtledove [Turtledove, Harry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Fantasy, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781416509189
Google: BBPzAAAAMAAJ
Amazon: 1416509186
Barnesnoble: 1416509186
Goodreads: 101597
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2005-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

VIII

After Podandos, Rhavas did no more preaching for a while. He did not care for the reception he’d got there. Yes, backwoods bumpkins, sure enough, and a priest who’d thought he knew it all. Better to save the truth he’d found for those who could best appreciate it. Rhavas went on toward Videssos the city.

He kept hoping he would outdistance the Khamorth and their irruption into the Empire. He kept hoping, and he kept being disappointed. Wherever he went, he found the barbarians there ahead of him. They’d sacked and plundered farms and villages and small towns and a few more cities. They hadn’t gone back to the Pardrayan steppe afterward, either. They’d come into Videssos to stay. Their flocks and herds wandered across land that should have had wheat and barley springing up from it after the spring thaw came.

And the thaw was almost here. Rhavas could feel it. One day soon there would be asnap! in the air, and all the winter’s snow would start to melt. After that, the going would be slow till the land dried out again, but then, for a few weeks, glory would shine out over the world. Spring in the northlands was much more dramatic than it was down by the capital.

Rhavas noticed he was traveling with his head cocked to one side, listening for thatsnap! Trouble found him before he found it. A troop of nomads rode toward him across a broad, snow-covered expanse that would probably be a meadow once the thaw began. He wasn’t unduly afraid of the Khamorth, but they could be a nuisance, maybe a dangerous nuisance.

To them, he was just a Videssian they’d caught out in the open. He could tell when they got close enough to realize he was riding a steppe pony and leading another. They booted their mounts up from a trot to a gallop. They assumed—rightly—that he must have killed other Khamorth to get their horses, and it looked as if they intended to pay him back.

He pointed at the closest nomad, who was still well out of archery range. The Khamorth tumbled off his horse and sprawled in the snow. The rest of the barbarians kept coming. Rhavas pointed at another one. He fell, too. So did another, and then another. If the plainsmen came any farther, he realized he would have to kill them all. Otherwise, they would be able to shoot at him with their fearsome, horn-strengthened bows, a prospect he relished not at all.

But they reined in then. They had to see he was a wizard of sorts, and that he could go on killing them if he chose. He waited as they put their heads together. At last, after some argument, one of them ostentatiously threw his bow down in the snow. For good measure, he also threw down the leather case in which the nomads carried their bow and arrows. Then he slowly rode toward Rhavas, plainly doing his best not to seem threatening.

Rhavas pointed at him nonetheless, but did not form the killing thought in his mind—not yet.

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