Shadow of Ararat

OUTSIDE OF THE CITY OF VAN, PERSIAN-OCCUPIED ARMENIA

H

Ah, bugger the lot of them.“ Thyatis slid the long-glass back into the leather case it rode in and slid off of the crest of the rocky slope. Nikos and Timur, who were lying up under the shade of a boulder at the bottom of the dry streambed, looked up as she crawled into their little shelter! She fit herself into the last free bit of shade under the overhang. Nikos passed her a wineskin filled with brackish water from the last well. She drank deeply, spilling a little water on her chin and chest. Wiping it away left a trail of tan mud.

“Pah!” She snarled and rubbed the mud away. “A desolate country. Well, my loyal followers, there’s too much to see and too little to do about it. There must be five or six thousand Persians between us and the gates of the city. Either of you have any suggestions about how we’re supposed to get in there?”

Timur laid back against the cool stone and closed his eyes. He was only a scout; this was a matter for the commanders to hash out. The wind whistled through the high chalky walls of the streambed and cooled them a little with its hot breath as they sat in the shade. Timur was filled with a sense of homecoming, though he knew that it was false. This high plain, dry and desolate save around the fringes of the great lake that crouched at its center, was only enough like his homeland to inspire memory, not to reveal to opened eyes the towering peaks of the Altai or the Khir Sahr. His leg ached, another sign that he was not home. If his leg had been good, would he be here?

“Are you sure that we have to meet this fellow in the city?”

Thyatis nodded, her face filled with disgust. “Yes, I’ve only the passcode to identify myself to him, not to his contacts in Tauris. Without him, we’ll have to try to get into Tauris by ourselves without any local assistance. We need to get in there and find this man. If he’s already dead, or fled from the city, then we can break off and head south to meet the army, but if the chance remains, we take it.”

Nikos nodded. “How do we get in, then? This is some barren countryside-we won’t be able to sneak up close to the walls. We haven’t even seen a local, so there’s no one to take a message inside or show us some secret way into the city. We know nothing about the Persian commanders, so unless you’re willing to take the time to scout them out, we can’t try faking our way past their patrols to get within a throw of the city.”

“True… I do love your optimistic nature, Nikos. Timur, open your eyes and answer me some questions. You were out for hours last night-what did you find?”

Timur’s dark eyelashes fluttered and he blinked a little.

“Beki jegun, there are two wadi,” he said, “dry stream-beds like this one-that run down from the hills to the lakeshore on either side of the town. The southern one is larger and deeper. It seems to run close to the south wall of the city, so-perhaps-some few of us could make our way down it to the point closest to the walls. From there a brave man might be able to make it to the wall and over, if the city men do not spear you as you attempt to climb the rampart.”

“That’s not a very good chance,” Nikos said. “There might be a commotion and we don’t want either the defenders of the city or the Persians to know that we’re here. We have to get in, and out, quietly with this guy. If no one knows we were here, I’ll call it successful.”

Timur shook his head. “Beki arban, that is a fool’s hope. The land is dry and the sky clear. Eventually the Persian scouts will cross our path and see the wagon tracks. Then they’ll know we were here. Then they will hunt for us.“

Thyatis slapped her thigh, causing a cloud of dust to puff up. “Both of you are fools and so am I. There’s a perfect way into the city-sitting right there, bright and blue as the sky. The lake. We can take a boat into the lakeside part of the town after full darkness.”

“A boat?” Nikos sputtered. “Where are we going to get a boat in this wasteland? The townspeople won’t be leaving them around for the Persians to use for day picnics. There’s neither wood nor time to build one.”

Thyatis laughed and crawled out of the overhang into the sun. It was on its downward course but still high in the sky. She squinted at it and estimated the time to dark before fitting the broad flat-brimmed straw hat back on her head. She strode off down the wadi at a brisk pace. Behind her Timur groaned and slowly crawled out of the shade. The ache in his leg was killing him these days. Nikos ran off to catch up with the centurion. Timur looked after the two of them with concern-it wasn’t a good idea to run around in the heat when it was like this.

The sky above was a blue-white bowl. Not even the wisp of a cloud marred its perfection.

“Is this why we’ve been dragging this thrice-damned wagon all over creation?” Nikos was whispering in the darkness and Thyatis had trouble picking out his voice from the soft slap of the lake water on the rocky shore. Each of them had hold of one side of the collapsible hide boat that the Sarmatians had been carrying in their gear in the wagon. A change of clothes and their weapons rode in the bottom. Carefully they picked their way down the beach to the water’s edge. The waves of Lake Thospitis were a bare ripple compared to the tides on the Sea of Darkness, but they had scoured off a bit of a strand. Uphill, in the cluster of trees that sheltered the wagon and the other men, there was the long-drawn-out hoot of a nesting owl. Immediately

Thyatis and Nikos went to ground, carefully touching the boat down so as not to make a noise. Around them the night air was quiet, filled only with the sound of the water slapping against the shore and the nearly inaudible squeak of bats.

Thyatis rolled over so that she could see up the beach in either direction. There were no lights, or the clatter of horses’ hooves on stone. Ten or twenty grains passed and she began to feel better, but there was still no all-clear signal. The moon had not risen yet, so the shore was black as pitch. She could hear Nikos breathing.

A cry of pain suddenly cut the night and there was the unmistakable ring of steel on steel from the copse of trees. A fire shot up, lighting the treetops, and against it Thyatis could see running men. There was shouting and she stood, frozen with indecision. An arrow whickered through the air and plunged into the lake behind them.

“Ai, come on,” Nikos hissed, and began dragging the boat toward the water as fast as he could. “It’s too late now to do ought but get away!” Another arrow came out of the night and slapped into the rear bowsprit of the boat. Thyatis woke up and spun to dash after Nikos, who was in the water and pushing the boat farther out. She splashed into the water, high-stepping, and then darted sideways at a faint sound behind her.

A spear clove into the water with a hiss, and a man cursed within feet of her. In the darkness, now only feebly lit by the fire raging in the crown of the dry trees, she could barely make out the shape of a hulking figure. The gleam of firelight off the man’s longsword, that she could see. He stepped in, slashing overhand with the blade, and her arm rang to the joint as she slapped the blade away on the fiat. She jumped up out of the water, furious with herself for leaving her own blade in the boat, and kicked at the weaving head of her assailant. There was a ringing crack as the iron hobnails on her boot caught the edge of the man’s helmet.

She dropped back down with a splash onto both feet as the attacker stumbled back.

In the darkness, Nikos was shouting for her. She ran through the shallow water in the opposite direction, away from the man. Within thirty feet he was gone in the darkness, and she swerved into deeper water. More feet were running on the beach, and voices were shouting commands. Up the hill, the sound of steel had faded and the roar of juniper trees combusting filled the air. In their light, she could see dozens of men in armor running down the hill to the beach.

Oh, Timur, she thought, you were far too right for your own good!

She waded back into the lake until only her nose and eyes were above the water. Then she began paddling slowly, keeping her arms underwater, back in the direction -Nikos had been with the boat. On the shore, men with lanterns and torches were beginning to spread out, searching the waterline.

Nikos, you half-Greek, half-Illyrian, who-knows-what-else bastard, you’d better not have run out on me…

The boat, low in the water with its burden, rocked gently from side to side. Nikos lay in the bottom, a partially drawn bow with arrow to hand across him. Over the water he could hear the cussing of Persian sergeants as they ordered their men to spread out and quarter the beach. Too, there was the splashing of men entering the water with lanterns and spears. With the trickiness of sound over water, he could not tell if they were close by or far away. For the moment he did not dare risk looking over the side at the beach lest he betray some reflection.

Instead, he whistled, the long cry of a night-jar. Forty heartbeats later, he whistled again.

There was a sudden shout up the beach, the cry of men _ on the hunt catching sight of their prey. Officers’ whistles cut the night and the light on the shore began to run north.

In the boat, Nikos half sat up, forgetting his earlier vow. The clusters of running torches seemed like fireflies across the water. Now there was shouting again, and the rasping sound of steel on iron. The torches bunched and men shouted angrily. Nikos sat up farther, but he could see nothing more. His heart was filled with agony-if not his commander, that was at least one of his men, brought to bay.

The boat rocked fiercely, and a voice thickened by exhaustion said: “Idiot! Get down and balance the boat before you fall out.”

Nikos sat down on the opposite side of the boat and grasped Thyatis’ wrist as she hauled herself over the side. She was soaked through and still wore the light iron mail shirt she had donned when they first came into sight of the embattled city. Gasping for breath, she lay in the bottom of the boat in a pool of water.

“Row,” she snarled, her voice filled with anger and loss. “Get us out of here.”

On the shore, the sound of fighting halted and there was a commotion among the hunters. Nikos dipped the paddle into the dark waters and stroked away. The little hide boat began to move through the night. Thyatis, utterly drained, lay in the bottom of the boat, quietly weeping.