One calculation of his came true: in a land not much touched by war, the locals hesitated to open canals to slow him down. «They'd have done just that, nearer Qostabash,» he said to Rhegorios.

His cousin nodded. «So they would. We'd have done some more sacking and wrecking ourselves, too. This feels as if we're traveling through their country, not fighting a war in it.»

«We're here to travel,» Maniakes said, and Rhegorios nodded again.

Travel they did, at a good pace. Once, not long after Immodios had separated himself from them! a delegation came out from one of the cities in the southern part of the floodplain: officials of some sort, along with yellow-robed servants of the God. Maniakes supposed they wanted to ask him not to sack their town, or perhaps not to plunder its fields. He never found out for certain, because he did not wait around for them to catch up to him. He wondered what they ended up doing. Going back into their city, he supposed, and thanking the God he'd passed it by.

He had no trouble keeping the army fed. With plenty of water, good soil, and heat the year around, the Land of the Thousand Cities bore even more abundantly than the coastal lowlands of the Empire of Videssos. Something was always ripe enough for men and horses to enjoy.

Messengers rode back and forth between Maniakes' army and Immodios' division impersonating that army. A couple of days after Maniakes didn't stop to listen to the local delegation, one of Immodios' riders brought in not only the officer's report of his position but also a message tube whose leather was stamped with the lion of Makuran. «Well, well,» Maniakes said. «Where did you come by this?»

«Fellow who was using it won't need it anymore.» The messenger grinned at him.

Maniakes spoke and understood the Makuraner language fairly well. In its written form, though, it used different characters from Videssian, and he'd never learned them. He found that Philetos could make sense of it. «Some interesting magical texts come out of Makuran,» the healer-priest remarked, «which are well worth leading in the original.»

«I don't think there's anything magical about this,» Maniakes said, handing him the parchment.

Philetos unrolled it and went through it with a speed and confidence that said he was indeed fluent in the written Makuraner language. «Your Majesty, this is from the commander of the army near Qostabash—Turan is his name—to the city governors in the region through which we are passing.»

«Ah,» Maniakes said. «That sounds interesting. I'll wager we've caught one copy of several, then. What does he say?»

«He warns them to be alert for Videssian brigands—his phrase, I assure you—who may be operating in this area. He says their depredations are a snare and a ruse, as the main Videssian force is advancing against him, and he expects to do battle against it soon.»

Maniakes smiled at Philetos. The healer-priest smiled back at him. «Isn't that nice?» the Avtokrator said. «This Turan doesn't know which end is up, sounds like.» He sobered. «He doesn't, that is, unless he manages to pick off one of our messengers. That would give the game away.»

«So it would,» Philetos agreed. «Here as elsewhere in life, secrets are never so secret as we might like.»

«That's truer than I wish it were,» Maniakes said. «And, speaking of wishes, I wish I'd thought of having a code for Immodios and me to use when we write back and forth to each other. Too late now, I'm afraid: if I send him one, I'll have to worry about the Makuraners capturing it and reading things I think they can't. Best leave it alone.»

Surprisingly soon, the hills from which the Tutub rose came into sight ahead of the Videssian army. Maniakes sent several messengers to Immodios, ordering him to leave off his imposture and join the main force. A rider from his division came back to Maniakes, confirming that he'd got the command. Of the division itself, though, there was for the moment no sign.

For the first couple of days, Maniakes did not worry over chat. Indeed, he took advantage of it, sending scouts deep into the hill country to make sure the ways south and east remained open. And those ways were open; Turan had not set traps along them to slow his progress. He supposed that, whatever orders the Makuraner general might be getting from Sharbaraz, he was just as well pleased to see the Avtokrator of the Videssians abandoning the Thousand Cities.

But, when Immodios did not arrive after those couple of days, Maniakes began to fret and fume. «Curse him,» the Avtokrator grumbled, «doesn't he realize this country isn't so rich as the Land of the Thousand Cities? We're going to start eating it empty pretty soon.»

«He has only a division of men,» Rhegorios said. «As near as I can see, this whole countryside breeds foot soldiers the way a dead dog breeds flies.»

He didn't say any more. As far as Maniakes was concerned, he'd said too much already. The Avtokrator had sent out Immodios' force as a distraction. He hadn't intended to have the Makuraners swallow it up. The Makuraners could afford the losses doing that would take, but he couldn't afford those they'd inflict on him.

No messengers came from Immodios. The scouts Maniakes sent north, in the direction of Qostabash, could not find a way past Turan's infantry, which was, as Rhegorios had said, abundant, and also very alert. Maniakes found himself facing a most unpleasant choice: either abandoning Immodios' division to its fate or going north to rescue it, delaying his return to Videssos the city on account of that, and possibly losing the capital to the Kubratoi and Makuraners.

To any Avtokrator of the Videssians, the capital had to come first. Maniakes told himself that, but still could not make himself leave Immodios in the lurch. Nor could he make himself order his army to head north, away from the route to Videssos the city. For two or three days, he simply dithered.

When at last he nerved himself to order the army to forget about Imrnodios, he found himself saved from the consequences of his own decision, for outriders from the missing division joined up with his own scouts. Immodios' main body came into his camp half a day later.

The dour officer prostrated himself before Maniakes. Most of the time, the Avtokrator would have waved for him not to bother. Today, he let Immodios go through with the proskynesis as a sign of his displeasure. When he did signal for the captain to rise, Immodios said, «Your Majesty, you can do as you like with me. By the good god, the Makuraners had me so plugged up along a river and canal line, I thought I'd never break out and get past them.»

Much of Maniakes' anger vanished. «Abivard did the same thing to us a couple of years ago—do you remember? He defied us to get onto his side of the water, but we beat him once we managed it»

«So we did, your Majesty, but we had the whole army then, and I had only a piece of it,» Immodios replied. «I'm afraid I did too good a job of convincing him you were with us—he pulled out everyone under the sun to carry shield and bow and hold us away from Qostabash.»

«I can see how that would have been a problem, yes,» Maniakes said. «How did you finally get over the waterline?»

«The same way we did two years ago,» Immodios answered. «I used part of my force to look as if I was going to force a crossing at one spot, then crossed someplace else where my scouts reported he was thinning out his garrison to cover the feint. Horses are faster than foot soldiers, so I managed to pull everyone across without too much trouble. I didn't do any more fighting afterward that I didn't have to: hurried down here to you.»

«All right,» Maniakes said. The dressing-down he'd planned to give Immodios died unspoken. The commander seemed to have given a good part of it to himself. «We'll head back toward Lyssaion, then.»