Swords Of the Legion by Harry Turtledove

Author:Harry Turtledove [Turtledove, Harry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, Alternate History
Published: 2011-01-08T06:00:00+00:00

dead as a sheepskin coat."

"Then fetch a child of four next time and leave me in peace," Tolui said. Echoing from behind the devil-mask he wore, his voice carried an otherworldly authority. Karaton touched a finger to his forehead in apology.

Tolui drew from his saddlebag a flat, murkily transparent slab of some waxy stone, which was transfixed by a thick needle of a different stone. "Chalcedony and emery," he explained to Gorgidas. "The hardness of the emery lets a man peering through the clear chalcedony pierce most illusions."

"Give it to me," Karaton said impatiently. He squinted up to the top of the mound. "Nothing," he said—but was there doubt in his voice? Tolui took the seeing-stone back and handed it to Gorgidas.

Things at the crown of the hillock seemed to jump when he put it to his eye, but steadied quickly.

"I don't know," he said at last. "There was a flicker but..." He offered the stone to Tolui. "See for yourself. 'Pin-toy is yours, after all; you should be able to use it best."

The shaman lifted the mask from his head and set it on his knee. He raised the stone and gazed through it for more than a minute. Gorgidas felt the backwash of his concentration as he channeled his vision to penetrate semblance and see truth.

The physician had never thought much about Tolui's power as a sorcerer. If anything, he assumed the shaman was of no great strength, as he had been second to Onogun until Bogoraz poisoned Arghun's old wizard because he favored Videssos. Since then Tolui's magic had always been adequate, but the Greek, not seeing him truly tested, went on reckoning him no more than a hedge-wizard mainly interested in herbs, roots and petty divinations.

He abruptly realized he had misjudged the shaman. When Tolui cried, "Wind spirits, come to my aid!

Blow away thecobwebs of enchantment before me!" the night seemed to hold its breath.

A howling rose above the hillock, as of a storm, but no wind buffeted Gorgidas' face. Then Karaton shouted in amazement while his men drew bows and bared swords. Like a curtain whisked away from in front of a puppet-theater’s stage, the illusion of emptiness at the crest of the hill was swept aside. Half a dozen campfires blazed among the ruins, with warriors sprawled around them at their ease.

The first arrows were in the air before Karaton could give the order to shoot. A Yezda pitched forward into one of the fires; another screamed as he was hit. A different scream went up, too, this one of fury, as the pair of wizards with the enemy felt their covering glamour snatched away.

"Up and take them!" Karaton yelled. "Quick, before they get their wits about them and go for weapons and armor!"

Shouting to demoralize the Yezda further, his men drove their ponies up the steep sides of the hill, then dismounted and scrambled toward the top on foot. Gorgidas and Rakio were with them, grabbing at shrubs or chunks of brick for hand-holds.

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