Shadow of Ararat

THE ROAD TO TAURIS

Dwyrin drank thirstily from the waterskin, his parched throat eager to drain every last drop from the sweating leather bag. When he wiped his lips, his hand came away caked with yellow dust. He spat and handed the bag off to Eric, who was sitting on the tumbled pile of stones below him. The German was almost unrecognizable under a thick coating of the same clinging yellow dust that afflicted Dwyrin. Eric nodded his thanks from under a broad-brimmed hat and turned the skin up to drink from it as well. Dwyrin rubbed his nose, red and peeling again from the unrelenting sun.

Below the cairn of rocks upon which they sat, the road up the valley of the Rawanduz echoed to the tramp of tens of thousands of booted feet. From his vantage, Dwyrin could see the long glittering steel snake that wound up the side of the valley, stretching back-it seemed-to the broad plain of dried mud and grass that had deposited so much of itself on the two boys. Dwyrin had heard that the combined armies of the two Empires numbered sixty thousand men, a number larger than he could conceive. They seemed endless, a constant stream of cohorts and banda and alae that tramped past below the outcropping and its stacked flat stones. A Legion century swung past, their shields and packs slung over their backs, their helmets hanging from straps, feet moving in unison like a steel millipede.

“Oh, there was a birdie with a yellow bill,” they sang in deep voices as they marched past, “it sat upon my win-dowsill…”

These men were clean-shaven and their gear was in good order, their shirts of mail glittering in the hot sun. Nearly all wore the same kind of woven hat that Eric always carried with him, to give a little shade. The spears they carried on their shoulders danced past, a forest of iron reeds. Their hobnailed boots clattered against the flinty stones of the roadway. A stocky man with short white hair paced them at the rear, his bull-roar of a voice carrying over even the massed noise of a hundred men. He glared at Dwyrin and Eric as he passed but made no move to disturb them.

Wagons followed the Western troops, towed by oxen and mules, filled with rolls of canvas and lengths of wood. The drovers walked at the head of the lead teams, the grade too steep to put‘ any more weight in the bed of the wagons. Above the road, a long tumbled slope of sandstone scree rose up, merging with the vast bulk of the mountain that towered over the valley. Dwyrin turned, shading his eyes against the fierce sun. The road continued up, into a vast wall of mountains capped with snow and ice. Beyond those peaks, he knew, lay Persia itself.

A fist rapped his ear and he cursed at the sharp pain. Zoe‘ stood over him, staring down at the two boys with slitted dark eyes. “Get up, you lazy brats. We’re to move forward to the next station.”

Dwyrin squinted up at her; she was only a dark shape silhouetted against the sun. The Syrian girl continued to ride him hard, though she no longer showed him the fierce anger she had before. She was only a year older than he was at the most, but he did not dare question her authority. Her fists and lightning-quick reflexes in the hidden world were more than a match for his. Too, she had been taking more pains with him of late, showing him the weave and the other exercises that she and Eric and Odenathus took for granted.

He had realized, to his dismay, that his training at the school had been cut short drastically, leaving him with only the rudiments of the necessary education. In its place he had a scattering of meditations and invocations that must be, had to be, the province of more experienced masters of the art. Dwyrin felt a hollowness in his chest; the skills he did possess were tremendously dangerous, as his period of hallucinations had shown.

“Come on, barbarian.” She held out her hand, brown and strong. He took it and she grunted, pulling him up onto the top of the cairn. Eric scrambled up behind him, puffing at the effort. Weeks of hard labor and constant physical abuse had not improved the pudgy German’s physique. Odenathus, who was uncoiling himself from a seated position on the rocks, Zoe, and Dwyrin had all become wiry and stronger than Dwyrin had expected. He slapped his thigh, feeling it hard and corded like a carved log. He could barely recall the softness of his life at the school.

Dwyrin followed Zoe down the slope, his eyes drawn to the sway of her long hair, braided into three dark ropes that lay back over her bag and bedroll. There was a fierce beauty about the girl that reminded him very much of his sisters back home. He tripped on a slab of rock and skidded down the slope. Luckily he crashed into a solid boulder within feet of falling. He got up, brushing more dirt off of him. Zoe had stopped and was staring at him.

“I’m fine,” he said, picking up his hat.

“Good,” she said, “you go first. And run-we have to take up the next watch in twenty grains.” She did not smile, but Dwyrin flushed-he knew that she knew he had been paying more attention to the shape of her ankles than where he was going. He slid the rest of the way down to the edge of the road. A mass of archers in pale-yellow cloaks and copper arm bracelets were marching past, the tramp of their feet raising a cloud of more dust around them. Dwyrin shrugged his pack tighter on his back and then jogged up the road, keeping to the outer edge where there was a little clear space. His calves reminded him that he had run the day before, but he ignored it. Zoe was right behind him.

At night they crowded around a tiny fire, barely kindling smoking down to coals. Eric had gone down to where the cooks had made fires in iron baskets and come back with fresh bread. Dwyrin tore into the partially burned loaf with strong teeth. Until they had set out on this march, he had not realized how good bread could taste when you only got it every three days. Clouds had come up, covering the stars and it was cold. Zoe, wedged in next to him and Odenathus, poked at a battered iron pot sitting in the embers with a stick.

“Not ready yet,” Odenathus muttered, his face half covered with a woolen scarf. “Those yellow beans need to cook for at least two glasses. Otherwise you’ll get no sleep.”

Zoe ignored him and continued to stir the beans. When the army had halted an hour before sunset, she had told off Dwyrin and Eric to find some spot out of the way of the mass of the other regiments and pitch their tents. Then she had taken her bow and jogged off into the mountain canyons. The army was sprawled along a narrow tongue of rising land in a barren valley. In the next days they would cross the high pass and enter Persia. But now, above the last scraggly trees, they rested in a wasteland of huge boulders and cracked stone. Snow lay in the shadow of the larger stones and the mountain peaks that ringed the valley held eternal caps of ice.

Dwyrin and Eric had scavenged for heavy stones to hold down the ropes of the tent and had looked for a sheltered spot between two of the monoliths. The rest of the army, particularly the cohorts of the Western Emperor, had taken the flatter ground by the sides of the narrow track. The sun was setting as the legionnaires began cutting a shallow ditch in the hard ground and raising the rough outline of a travel camp.

Shaking his head, Dwyrin had climbed among the boulders and slabs of stone until he found an alcove with fire markings on the southern wall. He, Eric, and Odenathus had dragged their gear from the wagons up there and set up camp. The looming rocks, brittle and worn by the caress of winter, made a fine windbreak. The army of the Eastern Emperor was still staggering into the valley and falling asleep wherever they found themselves.

“What do you think will happen when we come to battle?” Dwyrin said, after washing the grit of the bread from his mouth with a draft of sour wine. “It seems like we are two different armies, cast together by mischance.”

Zoe snorted, peering at the wild onions and dried apricots she had mixed in with the yellow beans. She looked up, catching his eye, her own reflecting the red gleam of the coals. “If you can learn to work with us in the hidden world, barbarian, then the two armies can fight as one.”

Eric choked with laughter and Odenathus leaned over to thump him hard on his back. Dwyrin made a face at him and passed the acetum over. The Northerner took two long swallows and breathed easier.

“Five-leader, I’m serious!” Dwyrin spread his hand in dismay. “You see how they march-a shambling disaster. Stopping and starting as they please, fouling the water of any river we cross, a mob of disorganized bands and personal retinues.”

“They do lack discipline,” Odenathus said from the other side of the fire. “But they are here, and they will fight. The Legions of the West are the core, though. If they stand firm, we will have victory.”

“Nicely quoted.” Zoe“ sniffed. ”I think these beans are done. Give me your bowls.“

A glass after dark, Zoe had appeared at the edge of their camp, a sour look on her face. The sky behind her was lit by the fitful glow of the encamped army. She still had her bow, but no game, only some gathered herbs and the onions. She had been pleased that Dwyrin had found kindling, for they had not had a chance to gather wood on the lower slopes. Her quiet word of thanks had lifted his spirits tremendously, though it was no stretch for him to ferret out the hidden stockpile left by whomever had been using the alcove as a camp. Any shepherd at home would have done the same.

The beans were sour and tough, but to Dwyrin they tasted divine after the long day of trudging up the steep road. Salt pork and mutton also paled after weeks on the march. He crushed an onion and felt its sting on his tongue. It felt good to be here, with his companions, around the fire under the dark sky with weary feet.

“The first battle will be the test,” Zoe said, cleaning out her bowl with a long finger. “If someone panics and runs, or we lose the barbarians to a stratagem, that will put paid to us. But if we can win one with this circus, we’ll be invincible.”

Eric rattled the pot, looking for more scraps. It was empty. He frowned and put it down. “What will we do? I mean-we’re the weakest five in the Ars Magica-will they have us do anything? I don’t want to hold horses again…“

“No,” Zoe said, “we’ll be in front. Colonna tipped me off yesterday. The tribune has decided to put us up with the skirmishers. We run forward with the slingers and archers and harass the enemy lines while they deploy. He thinks that we can spook the enemy while they’re still getting their thumbs out. Oh, we look for elephants too.” Dwyrin stole a glance at Odenathus, who had turned quite grim at this news. Zoe did not seem happy either, staring moodily into the fire. Ramifications tumbled around in Dwyrin’s thought until some of them slid queasily together. “Ah,” he said tentatively, “that would mean that we’d draw the attention of the other side’s heavy hitters first, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes,” Zoe said, her full lips twisted into a grimace something like a smile. “We’re bait for the big fish. As a condolence, if they slam us down, the tribune promises to make them pay a heavy man-price for us.”