The Shadow of Ararat

by Thomas Harlan

  "Lady, the Persian sorcerers are very strong. Unless this defense is taxing their full strength, which it may, Aretas will not be able to withstand them if they choose to counterattack."

  The strain in Ahmet's voice caught Zenobia's attention and she half turned in the saddle to look at him eye to eye. "What does this mean? Will they be able to defeat my army with magic?"

  Suddenly the Nabatean attack ceased, and the boiling fury that had been building to a breaking point faded. The dark shield remained, impenetrable, over the Persian lines.

  "No, now they've stopped. I think Aretas has realized that raw strength will not unravel this puzzle. My lady, while each coterie of wizards remains there is a balance on this field—but if one should gain an advantage, there will be a terrible slaughter."

  Zenobia nodded fiercely and raised her hand. One of her command banners matched the movement of her arm. Looking down the slope, the Persian center was continuing its advance. The Tanukh had galloped, on the left, to within arrow range of the Persian heavy horse and had begun lofting arrows into the middle of the formation. Zenobia chopped her hand down, and there was a peal of trumpets from her banner men. The war flags slashed the air. Ahmet stared down the Palmyrene line to the right. It began to move.

  "Attack!" Zenobia screamed, and she goosed her horse forward. She and her guardsmen trotted east along the length of the line, watching, as the arithmoi of infantrymen leveled their long spears and began walking forward, downhill, toward the Persians. Behind her the Decapoli heavy cavalry that had been screened behind the Tanukh horse began walking forward, angling towards the Persian heavy cavalry, which was suffering under the arrow fire. The entire Palmyrene force was in motion. Ahmet stared around him as they rode past the mercenary horse that was mounting up, a shiver of movement across the lines of horses. There was a terrible majesty about it.

  —|—

  Baraz scratched at his ear. The grand brocade hat that he was wearing, along with Shahin's armor—as ill-fitting as it was—was rubbing against his ear. He felt half a fool in the opulent costume, but as long as it served his purpose, he would suffer it. It was hard to move his head, though. The desert tribes were in full advance along the length of their line now, and the courtiers that he had "borrowed" from Shahin were beginning to mutter nervously.

  He smiled and nodded to the Luristani guardsmen who had attached themselves to him. The hulking infantrymen edged up behind the pretty birds to make sure that none of them took flight.

  The skirmishers who had occupied the space between the two armies scattered back through his lines now, as the advancing Romans closed to within a hundred and fifty yards of the Persian front. He could see, though his angle was not good, that the tribesmen had committed their heavy horse on his right as well, and there seemed to be an advance of infantry on his left.

  Baraz nodded to one of his signalmen, and the man raised a black banner with a skewed cross on it. Behind the group of riders, men crouched over great hide drums began to beat a long rolling tattoo. Ahead, the blocks of Persian spear, axe, and swordsmen began to advance up the hill at a walk. Within instants of starting their advance, the clear avenues between the formations disappeared as the men at the edges of the infantry battalions spilled out into the open space to avoid hitting the men in front of them. Baraz grunted. Just like foot soldiers—no discipline!

  A dispatch rider rode up, his helmet askew. "Lord Baraz!" The rider was one of Khadames' youngsters. "Lord Khadames requests that he be allowed to charge the enemy wing—his casualties are mounting from arrow fire."

  Baraz laughed grimly and shook his head. "No, lad, tell Khadames that if he so much as budges, I'll have him beheaded and his whole family sold as slaves in the great market at Ctesiphon. He holds for my order, and no other!"

  The youngster put spur to his horse and pelted off back to the right. Baraz smiled, noticing the queasy looks on the courtiers around him.

  "Worry not, friends!" he called out in his battlefield voice, so that all could hear. "Soon we'll see action aplenty! Are your swords loose? Are your bows strung and taut?" Then he laughed, for fear was beginning to creep into their eyes. The Luristani grinned and fingered their weapons.

  The Persian infantry was only fifty yards from the Romans and the center of the field was about to become a charnel house. Baraz gestured to his drum men, and they beat out a long rolling tattoo. The banners flourished in the air. Two hundred yards ahead of his position, Lord Rhazates began screaming orders at his infantry commanders and the Persian advance halted, raggedly on the left, skewing the line slightly, but it halted. The front rank of men went down to a kneeling position, their spears thrust forward horizontally and their large shields grounded. The second and third ranks crowded up, and a forest of longer spears and pikes sprang into being along the front.

  —|—

  Baraz sat astride his white horse, drumming his fingers on the high saddle horn. Dispatch riders crowded around him, relaying information to his lieutenants. He ordered the skirmishers, now that they had fallen back through the lanes between his blocks of infantry, to gather and swing to the left end of his line, where a regiment of swordsmen and unarmored spearmen were screening the Great Prince Shahin and his household cavalry from the advance of the Nabatean infantry. Dust rose in a great cloud in the center of the field where the spearmen and swordsmen were now at close quarters. The Boar summoned one of the dispatch riders.

  "Lad, find Lord Rhazates in that cauldron in front of us and tell him to hold his own, neither to advance nor retreat. Just retain the attention of the enemy."

  The sky growled like thunder, and Baraz jerked around, staring up into the bright blue sky. There was nothing there, but now an uneasy feeling prickled at his back and he turned his horse, staring across the shallow stream at the covered black wagon sitting by the side of the road. A troop of Uze horse was sitting around it on the ground, seemingly oblivious. To Baraz's eye, it seemed that the air around the wagon shimmered with an unhealthy color.

  —|—

  On the Palmyrene left wing, where Mohammad and his horse archers had been dashing toward the Persians, firing a black cloud of arrows and then swerving away in fine style, the Palmyrene knights had ridden up at last and had dispersed into a line nine ranks deep. Mohammad rose up in his stirrups and waved the green banner that ibn'Adi favored in a slashing circle. His horsemen, seeing the signal, broke away to the left and right from their latest sortie, clearing a lane for the Palmyrenes to charge down. Mohammad galloped past the front of the Persian line, the last of the Tanukh to abandon the attack, seeing the dead and dying Persians transfixed by black-fletched shafts—many still on their horses, milling about in the closely packed formation.

  Still the Persians held their ranks and did not charge. Mohammad shook his head at their bravery and discipline—no Arab contingent would have been able to stand the slaughter. He galloped back up the low hill, his bannermen following close behind.

  "Regroup! Regroup!" Mohammad shouted, his voice carrying across the field. The Tanukh, scattered across the northern end of the plain, began riding back to him, gathering around the green and white banner of ibn'Adi. And still the Persians refused to move from their ranks. Al'Quraysh wheeled his horse, now that his subcommanders had the horsemen in hand, and trotted up to the line of Palmyrene knights, who had not budged from their positions once they had broken out into a wedge.

  "Lord Zabda," Mohammad called across the ranks of armored horsemen. "The Persians are still stunned by our arrows, you must attack immediately! Their backs are to the stream, you can drive their horses into the soft ground."

  Zabda turned his horse and trotted through the ranks of his men. He was clad in a long chainmail shirt under a breastplate of metal strips tied together with leather lacings. A heavy helmet, cone-shaped like the Persian spangenhelm, covered his head, save for a narrow slit for his eyes. A pennon fluttered from the sharp tip of the cone. The shoulders, chest, and head of his horse were covered in thick l
eather barding with iron scales woven into it. The general pulled up next to Mohammed's winded horse and put a gloved hand on the Southerner's shoulder.

  "We are outnumbered by two to one, Quraysh! I'll not send my men to their deaths for nothing. Look, the Queen has dispatched the reserve to support us." He pointed back toward the main Palmyrene positions. Mohammad looked over the man's shoulder. Sure enough, the mercenary cavalry was trotting at an easy pace across the field to join them. The center of the battle had devolved into a massive cloud of dust, momentarily broken by bands of men with swords and spears rushing to and fro. Mohammad could not see Zenobia's banners.

  "They'll be here too late for the initial charge," he snapped at the older man. "My Tanukh will charge with you, our numbers will be greater then!"

  Zabda laughed, a hollow sound coming from within the metal helmet. "Your desert bandits? There's no way they can stand against the Iron Hats! No, we will wait for reinforcements."

  Mohammad cursed luridly and spurred his horse away. As he rode back down the hill, he shouted at his banner-men. "Flag the commanders! Regroup and prepare to charge the Persian lines!"

  Zabda called out from behind him, but Mohammad did not hear him.

  —|—

  Baraz finally discarded the ornamental hat and tore the silk tabard and cloak off of his shoulders. The rich green material fluttered to the ground and was quickly churned to nothing by the hooves of the horses. The Roman infantry charge had slammed the Persians back to their original positions, and now the melee was beginning to bow the Persian infantry line in the center. The Persian formations had dissolved into a confused mass of men, but the Boar could see that the Romans were holding their line and grinding forward, their short blades flickering in the air. Baraz and his Luristani guards cantered to the west, the general trying to see what was happening on the right wing. The Palmyrenes seemed to have gathered their heavy horse in preparation for a charge—but they had not done so yet. He looked back to the left, seeing that the Roman infantry was fully committed to the center.

  "Dispatch rider!" One of the youngsters swerved to join him. "To Khadames on the right, now he must attack! Flags! Signal an advance on the right."

  The general rode up to a band of archers sitting on the ground, well behind the clangor of the melee. Their captain leapt to his feet, seeing the banner of the Great Prince fluttering behind Baraz. "Captain, take your men to the left. The Nabateans have engaged our wing. Support the infantry and Shahin's household cavalry there. Go!"

  The archers shouldered their bows and quivers of arrows, their bare chests slick with sweat. They wore only short cotton kilts, now drab with mud and dust. The captain saluted and began shouting at his men. They jogged off to the east in a column of twos. Baraz shaded his eyes, staring at Khadames' horsemen on the far right. The banners of the horsemen dipped in acknowledgment of the order. The shining mass of men began to shift and disperse as they formed up into ranks to charge up the hill against the Romans.

  Baraz grunted and waved his men to follow him. He turned back and rode toward the center of the line. Khadames would carry the wing or not; it was out of Baraz's hands now.

  —|—

  "What do you mean, they refuse to advance?" Zenobia's eyes flashed in anger.

  The courier bowed, saying "The captain of the knights says that he moves upon Aretas' order, not yours."

  Zenobia was dumbfounded. She stared up at the bluff where the Prince and his priests were still conjuring in their tent. The Palmyrene right wing had swept down the hill with a combined force of Nabatean infantry and her archers and slingers. They had clashed with a smaller force of Persian light infantry and pushed it aside, fouling the flank of the main Persian infantry. There had been a large force of Persian cataphracti behind the spearmen, but it had withdrawn, leaving the spearmen and now bands of archers to fight it out with the Nabateans in chain mail, longswords, and shields at close quarters. The more heavily armored Nabateans were slaughtering the Persians, many of whom only had a wicker shield and spear for arms.

  Over the roar of battle—men screaming and dying, the clash of arms, running feet, the whistle of arrows—Zenobia shouted louder to make herself heard to her bannermen. "Send a dispatch rider to Aretas. He must order his cavalry to advance on the right! We can turn the entire Persian flank if they charge now!" Two of her riders galloped off.

  "Curse him!" Zenobia wiped sweat out of her eyes. The day had grown hot and she and her command group were in constant movement. She had changed horses twice, keeping a fresh mount beneath her. Ahmet nodded absently, his vision focused inward. The slaughter on the field was seeping through into the hidden world. Eddies and vortices of hatred and fear and the flash of the dying were forming in the unseen world around the battlefield. The Nabatean priests had halted their attack on the black sphere, and even it had begun to flake and fade away under the disrupting stress of the battle. The Persians, though, had begun to attack in turn, sending traceries of ultraviolet stalking invisibly across the field. Now Aretas and his minions were hard pressed to hold back the strength of Persia.

  One dark tendril whipped out toward Ahmet and Zenobia, its tip sparking with green lightning. Ahmet's will crystallized and the shield of Athena flared into almost visible brilliance. The ultraviolet lightning struck the sphere and slithered across its face, burning fiercely. Ahmet gasped at the strength in the blow and struggled to draw more power from the land around him. The stones and rocks had already been leached dry by Aretas. Furious, he snatched at the emotion in the air, and the blue geometries of his defense flared up long enough to hold back the lightning. It snapped away, leaving him exhausted.

  "The enemy wizards are incredibly strong, my Queen," he whispered into Zenobia's ear. "Aretas cannot aid you, his whole attention is upon the enemy."

  "Then I will move his men myself! Ha!" The stallion leapt away and Ahmet clung for dear life as the Queen stormed up the slope to the bluff.

  —|—

  Mohammed spun his horse and cantered to the left of the massed Tanukh. His banner men hurtled along with him, wither to wither. He leaned forward and slashed his hand forward. As one, the three thousand Tanukh wheeled with him and launched themselves forward, a long curving line, like a scimitar blade, against the Persian horse that was advancing at a walk up the hill. Mohammed felt a fierce burst of pride at the responsive movement of his men. The chestnut mare flew across the rocky ground, and he raised his voice in a long ululating scream of battle. Three thousand throats answered him and the Tanukh thundered down the shallow slope, their lances flashing down to face the Iron Hats. Mohammed had never felt so alive and focused in his life. The Persian ranks, still separating into charge intervals, swelled in his vision.

  —|—

  Zenobia's head snapped around as the distant sound of a terrible war cry reached her, attenuated by the dusty air and the distance. She had almost reached the blocks of Nabatean tagma who were still sitting ahorse under the eaves of the bluff. She rose up, and dimly, through the clouds of fine dust, she saw a line of horsemen slam into the advancing Persians on the far left wing of her army. She blanched at the dull crash that echoed across the field to her. Her fist clenched until the knuckles were white.

  "Dispatch rider," she whispered, then shouted. One of the Tanukh rode up, his face pale. "Find Zabda on the left wing and tell him, by Hecate, to charge the Persian line!" Her voice rose to a shriek. "Find the mercenary knights and tell them to ride to Zabda as fast as they can." There was a sick feeling curdling in her stomach. Regardless, she tore her attention away and back to the small group of Nabatean officers who were standing next to their horses in the shade of a pavilion.

  Zenobia's face was grim and set as she walked the dun horse up to the Nabateans.

  "I sent orders for you and your tagma to advance in support of the infantry fighting on the right wing," she said, her voice calm and controlled.

  The middle officer, a plump man with Aretas' nose and tightly curled hair peepin
g out from under his helmet, bowed to her. "My lady, we are under strict orders from our Prince and King to stand ready to move on his command. He made it quite clear that we were to move on his order, and his order only."

  Zenobia turned the horse and stared down at the Nabatean officers. "Your precious King and Prince is well occupied in his own battle, my lords. He cannot spare the time to give you orders. I am giving you orders. You will attack on the right in support of your own civil infantry arithmoi and turn the Persian line. Is that clear?"

  The plump officer stuck out his chin defiantly and his eyes hardened. His people had been powerful on the desert frontier for centuries before a quirk of the Twin Rivers made Palmyra rich and elevated a motley collection of tribesmen into a principality. Too, the man was sure of the favor of his king.

  "We ride on the orders of Aretas, Lady Zenobia, and no other!"

  "Fool!" Zenobia snapped, losing her temper. "The battle hangs in the balance and you dawdle here and posture! You will advance your men, or I will remove you from command!"

  The plump officer's hand snaked to the hilt of his sword, but Ahmet suddenly spoke harshly. "Something is happening! Aretas is beset..."

  In the hidden world, the Persians had finally tired of the game and had sent forth their full power. Aretas and his priests screamed in fear, the sound echoing in the confines of their tent. Their servants rushed forward, but then staggered back in utter horror. The Prince stumbled out of the tent, clawing at his eyes, which had suddenly filled with blood and then burst, spewing red gelatin on the first servant to rush to his aid. Aretas screamed again, clawing at his face, his fingers tearing long bloody strips from his cheekbones. His body convulsed and the servants cried out to see his flesh ripple and bunch, as if thousands of worms or snakes were trapped under his skin. Aretas stumbled forward and then spread his arms wide and stepped off the edge of the bluff.