Aban shook his head. “When the merchants started to scatter, Musa closed the city and posted guards around the camps to keep any more from leaving.” He pointed at the crowds around them. “These are just the ones who escaped before she shut the gates.”
“There’s more,” Storana said.
Walagash sighed. “There almost always is. What?”
“I spoke with a caravan guard who bribed his way out of the city after Musa posted sentries at the gates. She’s stripping the caravans of their guards and impressing them into her cavalry. And she seems to think Parthia needs infantry. Able-bodied men who don’t know how to ride are being taken as well.”
At that, Walagash signaled Aban, Storana, and the rest of his guards to surround them. “Make sure we’re not overheard.” After they left, he pointed at the cataphracts. “Merchants have guards, not cataphracts. They have to change. We can hide their armor with the silks, but the lances must be left behind. Leave them in the desert where they won’t be found.” He turned to the magi. “The rest of you will need more functional clothing and weapons as well. From a distance you should be able to pass as guards.”
“Why not ride north around the Hyrcanian Sea and travel down to Israel through Syria?” Hakam asked.
Walagash’s laughter came out as a bark. “Two reasons. First, the Hyrcanian Sea is unimaginably vast. Going around it would more than double the time it takes to get from Margiana to Judea. Second, the northern tip of the sea is controlled by Scythian tribesmen. They’re aggressive and ruthless toward outsiders.”
“And as good with the bow as the Parthians,” Aban added.
Storana smiled, her eyes sharp. “Some of them are even better.”
“Let’s water the horses,” Walagash said. “Then we will cut across the desert to the first oasis east of Hecatompylos.”
“At night?” Yehudah asked.
“Yes.” Walagash looked at Masista.
“It can be done,” said Masista, “if you have someone to guide you.”
CHAPTER 22
By the time they’d led the horses to the watering trough, the sun was a ball of dull orange resting on the horizon. Aban and Storana scouted the western edge of the oasis to listen for the latest news from Hecatompylos. When the horses finished drinking, Myrad took his place at the back of the caravan with Roshan, but before they could leave, Aban and Storana came galloping back to the caravan.
“The way west is blocked,” Aban said after everyone gathered. “Musa’s men have left the city and have covered the caravan routes from here to Ctesiphon. Any man who can bear arms is being taken as property of the empire. The other caravan masters thought as you did, so Musa’s men are sweeping the desert.”
Walagash bowed his head and muttered a curse. When he looked up again, he surveyed the men before him. It was Myrad’s face he settled on. “I’m sorry. We’re going to have to go back. Your dream and mine are over.” He looked at the train of horses with their piles of silk and sighed. “So close.”
Myrad followed his gaze. “Can you not sell your goods in the east?”
He nodded, but his expression never changed. “With the trade routes cut off by the war, Margiana and the cities of the east will be awash in silk and every other good coming out of Qian. It would be a miracle if I broke even, and breaking even was not part of my deal with Esai.”
“Go back if you must,” Yehudah said, “but we will go on. We have to find a way to Judea and the King.”
Myrad sat on his horse, his bow in his lap as it always was now, his clothes along with his crown and the rest of his father’s money stashed in his pack behind him.
“What path will you follow?” Walagash asked Myrad.
He looked to Roshan, who was on her mount at Walagash’s side, her eyes fixed on her father. Yehudah and the rest of the magi watched him, waiting for him to affirm or deny his place among them. There was no choice. He would follow the dream in all its impossibility, no matter the cost.
“No choice needs to be made,” Masista said. “At least not yet.”
Walagash’s eyes narrowed. “Surely, magus, you don’t think I’m foolish enough to trust you. Your place in my caravan was nothing more than a temporary necessity.”
“There is a way to get your goods and Yehudah’s gifts to the west,” Masista said, “if you’re bold enough to take it.”
For the space of a few heartbeats, Walagash appeared to consider Masista’s offer. Myrad watched warring expressions chase each other across his face. “No,” he said. “I have no reason to trust a man who finds his friends expendable.”
Masista bowed as though the merchant had paid him a compliment. “That I am single-minded is why you can trust me, but if you won’t trust me, consider whether or not you can trust the prince of Hyrcania and the kings of Armenia.”
“Armenia?” Dov said. “They’re aligned with Rome. Going there would be like running straight for Musa’s embrace.”
Masista shook his head. “You’re one of the magi. You should know better.” He turned to Yehudah. “What do you say?”
Yehudah jerked his head once in assent. “There’s merit to what Masista says. The prince of Hyrcania is of the same blood as Orodes. His territory skirts along the southern edge of the sea and would bring us to the border of Armenia. The Armenians”—he sighed—“are unpredictable.”
Masista smiled. “I know them. They will bargain. From there we can journey west to Syria and the border of the Roman Empire. Just because the roads in Parthia are closed to merchants doesn’t mean the roads in Armenia will be.”
“But what of Tigranes and Erato?” Dov asked Yehudah.
The magus shrugged. “That’s a cast of the lot. They may be disposed against Rome as Masista says, but political alignments in Armenia are even more ephemeral than Parthia. Their survival is based on their ability to play the two empires against each other.”
Masista’s gaze sought out each of them. “As I said, there’s a plan if you are bold enough to take it. Sell your silks directly to the Romans and your profit is assured.”
By way of answer, Walagash checked the position of the sun. “We can’t stay on the road and we won’t be traveling through the desert. Who will guide us through the forests?”
They polled their men and found no one with knowledge of Hyrcania. Walagash appeared undecided. Then, like a man shouldering a burden he knew to be too heavy, he straightened. “Our first priority is to get off the road and away from the eyes of Musa’s men. Put the horses to a steady trot until sunset.”
They rode north out of the oasis. Within minutes, the terrain changed from desert to rolling hills covered with scrub and wayfaring trees. At Walagash’s command, they rode four across to ward off attacks by leopards. They ascended a wrinkle in the hills, then dropped into a swale between two folds of the land. When they ascended again, they heard sounds of fighting, the distant clash of swords coming from the oasis behind them.
They paused to look back, but dusk blurred the torches of the oasis into smudges of wavering light. The sounds of war stilled a few moments later until there was nothing but silence. “Musa has taken the oasis,” someone said. No one needed confirmation. They turned their horses toward the next hill north. Minutes later, the sky darkened and night sounds filled the air. Soon the guards out front could no longer see the steps their horses took, and they stopped to light torches.
Walagash wheeled his mount to peer back the way they’d come. Myrad followed his gaze. There, in the distance below them, burned the lights of the oasis, the individual torches small like candles and as fragile. The merchant muttered a curse.
“What’s wrong?” Myrad asked.
Walagash’s arm rose to point. “If we can see their lights, they can see ours. We’ll have to make camp in the dark.”
“Is that bad?”
Walagash nodded and ordered the torches extinguished. “Leopards can see in the dark. Pray to your god we haven’t stopped in their hunting range. Perhaps a cold camp w
ill work in our favor.”
They unloaded the horses by the light of a crescent moon and bunched them together instead of placing them in a picket line. Walagash barked orders in the darkness. “Every man stands watch tonight. All night.”
Masista’s objection came immediately from Myrad’s right. “Are you not overestimating our danger, merchant?”
To his credit, Walagash responded to Masista’s question instead of his arrogant tone. “Perhaps. I have camped in the hills north of Hecatompylos only once before, when I was new to the road. It wasn’t quite the same. We had camels, not horses, and we thought we were safe enough to have a fire at night.” His words hinted at a story left unspoken.
“What happened?” Myrad asked.
“Two of our men died by snakebite and one more was dragged away by a leopard. He screamed for a long time.” The pitch of Walagash’s voice dipped to a murmur. “Keep your sword out and forward.”
Myrad stared out over the end of a sword given him by one of Walagash’s guards, or imagined he did. He strained to see, but his eyes couldn’t penetrate the deepening gloom. Three, perhaps four hours in, long past the point where the pain in his clubfoot had become a stab of fire, he noticed shadows of black within the night, suggestions of rocks or horses depending on where he looked.
Aban’s voice came out of the darkness. “We’ve been seen, Walagash. Men are headed this way from the oasis.”
The merchant spun to stare south. Pinpricks of light bobbed in the distance, floating toward them, with more appearing every second that passed.
Walagash spat in the dirt. “Your plan isn’t starting off so well, Masista.”
“Bold moves require sacrifices,” the magus replied.
Quickly lighting a torch, Walagash turned to Aban and Storana. “Get a dozen guards with torches mounted and lead the pursuers away from here. Head north, then east. As soon as the sun comes up, we’ll head west.”
Aban glanced back at the bobbing lights. “They’ll find you.”
Walagash shook his head. “It will take them an hour or more to get here. We’ll be hiding.”
The look on Aban’s face spoke as eloquently as words of his thoughts on the plan. He nodded and turned to go.
Walagash ordered the rest of them into a line toward the thickest part of the forest. “Get the rest of the horses as far into the forest as possible.”
“What about the gifts?” Hakam asked.
Walagash huffed. “Cargo doesn’t make much noise. Take it a short way into the trees. As long as they don’t stumble over it, they’ll never see it.”
Roshan sidled up to her father. “That’s a lot to move in not much time, and we’re going to have to feel our way in the dark.”
Myrad stepped forward over the uneven ground, desperate for some task to distract him. “What do you want me to do?” he asked Walagash, but it was Roshan who answered.
“Find a couple of good horses and follow me.”
The lights of Aban and the other torchbearers faded. Before absolute night fell over them again, every man grabbed the reins of as many horses as he could hold. Roshan led Myrad into the forest. Myrad felt his way, praying any snakes would be scared away by the approach of hooves. After fifty paces, Roshan stopped. Her voice came to him a moment later. “Hand me your reins.”
Myrad held out his arm toward the sound of her voice until they bumped hands. She tied his horses to a nearby tree.
For the next hour, they crept back and forth with more horses as the lights of the approaching soldiers inched closer. Walagash and the rest of the caravan paralleled them, moving the heavy loads of cargo into the cover of the trees. No matter how many trips they made, it seemed the number of horses to move never changed.
In the distance, he could make out hints of faces and bodies surrounding the torches. He tasted bile at the back of his throat. This was no scouting party. Over a thousand men were heading their way. Steel reflected the light of their torches. In minutes the soldiers would be on top of them. If any horses or cargo were discovered, their ruse would fail. Escape in the dark would be all but impossible, especially for a half-lame magus.
“Faster,” Roshan urged.
They led horses by groups now, hurrying across the rocky ground. Twice Myrad stumbled and fell, pitching headlong. The second time he landed on a sharp rock and cut open his arm. Breath hissed from him as he struggled not to scream. By the time he got his feet underneath him again, blood tracked its way to his hand.
He felt along the ground with his feet, working to get the horses deeper into the forest, when a hand to his chest stopped him. “Be still,” Roshan whispered into his ear. “They’re here.”
He looked back the way he’d come and saw men picking their way among the rocks by torchlight. Tracking.
“Where are Walagash and the others?” Myrad whispered.
“Around us. Hiding.”
The soldiers approached the place where they’d intended to camp, their horses slowing. By flickers of torchlight Myrad could see them pointing at the ground. It wasn’t until his vision narrowed to a pinpoint that he realized he’d been holding his breath.
“There were riders here,” one of them said. In the stillness, his voice sounded close enough for Myrad to reach out and touch him.
The scouts for the soldiers—four men holding torches as they studied the ground—split up, searching. Roshan reached out, found Myrad’s hand, then pushed the hilt of a dagger into it. One of the men twitched the reins of his horse, moving toward their hiding spot. Any second now he would stumble across them or their cargo and they would be discovered. Then they would die.
“This way,” one of the other scouts called, pointing north.
The long column of horses passed by even as the scout nearest them lingered. Myrad stared at him, transfixed by his danger. Roshan’s whisper warmed his ear. “Close your eyes. They reflect torchlight, and he can feel you looking at him.”
Myrad squeezed his eyes shut, trying to hear, but the thunder of his heartbeat drowned out every other sound. He cracked one eye open, just enough to count the riders passing by their hiding spot. An eternity later, a few men shy of two thousand, Roshan’s whisper came to him again. “They’re gone.”
“What do we do now?”
“We wait for dawn and hope Aban and the rest can lead them away.”
He slumped against the tree, his eyes on the night sky.
A nudge in his ribs brought him to wakefulness. A predawn sky lightened to gray showed figures moving through the trees. They brought the horses out of the forest to the trail leading north and headed out before the sun broke the horizon. Myrad and Roshan rode next to Walagash in the center of the caravan. The cataphracts rode in the front while the remainder of Walagash’s men covered the rear. “Are we safe now?” Myrad asked.
Walagash cocked his head to one side. “Safety is measured by comparison. We’re safer than we were last night, but those men are in the forest with us.”
“What do they want?”
“I thought at first they desired nothing more than to force the guards and cataphracts into the service of the queen.” He rolled his huge shoulders. “But there are too many. Now I think we have a common destination.”
They continued north, riding into a narrow ravine whose sides grew steeper as they proceeded. By midmorning, clouds blotted out the sun, cooling the air. Storana handed Myrad a piece of thick, oiled leather. “Wrap your bow and bowstring in these. Rain will ruin them.”
He wrapped the bow and tucked the weapon beneath his riding blanket just before the rain began to fall. A few moments later, it was pelting him and his horse. He peered ahead but couldn’t make out the trail anymore. A wall of gray obscured his vision, and a rushing sound filled his ears. Amid the deluge, claps of thunder rolled across the sky from the north.
“Get out of the ravine!” Walagash shouted. He waved his arms, working to be seen.
The torrent of water was so heavy that Myrad could hardly breathe,
much less see. A bolt of lightning stabbed through the sky to strike a tree beside him. Blinded, he threw his hands up to cover his ears as Areion reared and bolted. By chance or miracle, he managed to stay mounted. He heard screams to his left but couldn’t see anything but afterimages of lightning. Areion ran to higher ground. He and the horse crashed into a copse of trees, shielding them from the worst of the storm.
Myrad wiped the water from his eyes. He was alone.
A brief lull in the storm allowed him to see more clearly. The rest of the caravan paralleled him on the opposite side of the ravine. All of them but Dov. The magus lay in the stream at the bottom of the defile, his horse nowhere in sight.
Myrad kicked his horse into motion as the storm surged again, down the steep slope toward the magus. Before he got halfway there, a roar came from the north and he looked to see a wall of water rushing downhill, churning and carrying broken tree limbs as thick as his waist. The stream at the bottom of the ravine swelled. Roshan and Aban rode toward Dov from the other side of the ravine.
Before any of them could reach him, the wall of water came crashing through, lifting the unconscious magus and carrying him away. Myrad drove Areion toward his friend, but the flood continued to swell and strengthen, swallowing him. His body submerged, bobbed once to the surface, and was gone.
Myrad watched in horror as the storm raged around him. He heard screaming coming from Roshan on the far side of the flood. “Hurry!” She pointed to a sheer wall of rock twenty paces behind him.
Horror struck him. If he couldn’t get to the other side, the floodwaters would trap him against the rock wall and sweep him away.
He dug his heels in, desperate to cross the stream. Areion responded as if he understood their danger, his hooves pounding the earth, working to find purchase. Myrad leaned forward and shouted, urging his horse on to greater speed. He looked up to see grief etched on Roshan’s face. He was still ten paces away when the flood turned the river into a seething cauldron that filled the bottom of the gorge.
Water lapped at Areion’s knees. Myrad jerked the reins and reversed direction, begging his horse for all the speed it could give him. Areion fought for every inch of ground he gained, his hooves slipping against the rain-slicked rocks. Then he stopped, unable to climb any farther.
The End of the Magi Page 18