Shadow of Ararat

NORTH OF EMESA, THE THEME OF SYRIA MAGNA

Empress!“ One of the Tanukh riders, his kaffieh streaming behind him in the wind of his passage, galloped into the command camp. Nabatean spearmen, guarding the entrance to the camp, dashed out of his way. His horse was lathered and coated with dust from the road. Zenobia, her hair still undone, stepped away from the cluster of sleepy officers who surrounded her at the doorway of her great tent. With the army on the march, she wore hunting leathers-a pair of soft kid trousers with a stout vest over a loose cotton shirt. Her hand, quick as a hawk in flight, snagged the bridle of the horse and the man drew to a halt. The horse blew, heavily, and Zenobia patted its long nose.

“The Al’Quraysh sends his greetings on this fine morning, Empress, and says that the Persian army is athwart the road to the north and is deploying for battle.”

The Queen flashed a brilliant smile. Her camp had been made on a low hill beside the main road north from the Roman city of Emesa, now some three leagues behind them, to the smaller town of Arethusa on the Orontes River. A copse of trees marked the crown of the hill, and the brightly colored tents of her servants and commanders were settled among the junipers and scrubby pines. Curlicues of smoke rose from their campfires. To the north, other hills blocked her view of the long slope down to the Orontes. Behind her, a fine view of Emesa and the fertile valley around it could be seen. The morning sun, just over the eastern horizon, bathed the land in a pale-pink light. The air was still quite cool from the night and the horse’s breath was a cloud in the air.

“It is a fine morning. Tell the Al’Quraysh that we will be with him presently.”

The man reined around and cantered away through the line of trees in a swirl of dust.

Zenobia stared north with a sly grin on her face and slapped her thigh with the riding stick she favored as a pointer for staff meetings. The Persians had turned to face her at last. Today was the day that she would equal her distant ancestor and set her people free of both Empires. She turned and strode back to the gathering of her men. At one side of the cluster of officers, Ahmet sat on a camp stooj, calmly eating his morning porridge. He glanced up as she passed into the tent. The Queen was in a good humor.

Ahmet jounced up and down, his tailbone complaining bitterly, his hands around Zenobia’s slim waist as they trotted up over the last rise. He had added a kqffieh, a loose headpiece of flowing cotton and a band of corded rope to hold it on his head, to his usual robes over a loincloth. In previous days he had walked alongside the wagons carrying Zenobia’s personal effects and her household, but today the Queen made haste, so he rode behind her.

Beyond the rise, the hills had dropped away and a broad plain, shaped like the head of a spear, pointed to the northeast. A stream ran along the farther edge of the plain, where another range of low hills rose up. The Emesa road cut at an angle down the near slope, crossed the stream at a ford, and then rose up into those hills. The ground in between was littered with rocks, small boulders, scrubby grass, and low gray bushes. Zenobia surveyed the terrain with a glint in her eye.

“Overgrazed,” she said, turning to the east on the great black stallion that she favored and riding along the line of the crest. “Firm ground, good traction for horses and men.”

“A pity the Persians turned back before they stumbled onto your gift at Lake Bahrat.”

Zenobia glanced over her shoulder at the Egyptian, her eyes smoldering with anger.

“The first stroke of good sense the Great Prince Shahin ever had in his life!”

Ahmet nodded and clung tighter to her as they crossed some rough ground. Zenobia’s army was disgorging onto the southern side of the plain from the main road and several other tracks that Mohammed’s scouts had found leading through the hills. The Palmyrene and Nabatean heavy cavalry was trotting out in oblong formations, five and six men deep, their lances raised like a forest of steel reeds. Banners rose and fell over the formations as their commanders attempted to coax them into a line of battle. Bands of Syrian and Nabatean infantry, arithmoi to the Romans, spilled out of the trails on either side. Black-skinned men with tufts of feathers worked into their hair, carrying bows and javelins, ran past the command group down the slope. Zenobia was heading for a bluff to the right side of the main road. A band of men in red armor was already deployed on the height. Aretas and his priests, Ahmet thought.

“You’re sure that Shahin still commands the Persian host?” His voice was quiet, though the clatter of the horse’s hooves on the rocky ground was sure to drown out anything but a shout.

Zenobia nodded, though she frowned in concentration.

“One of our scouts must have been discovered,” she said, “to make them abandon the camp in such haste.” She snarled in anger, striking her riding boot with the crop. “Just one more day and we would have had them on the plain at Bahrat. Ha, we would have had him already if Mohammed could have kept those Tanukh bandits from looting the Persian camp. Ah, it is as my father always said-the time of battle is never chosen and the field is never favorable!“ She pointed out at the plain they were facing.

“This is almost perfect for him, though, the Persian eunuch! His clibanari and cataphracti will have a fine day against us if we are not aggressive.”

She stopped talking for a moment as the stallion surged up the side of the bluff and she rode into the midst of Aretas’ guardsmen. The Nabatean’s servants had already thrown up an open-sided tent and the Prince, clad in enameled red armor composed of overlapping metal lozenges secured with leather bands, was seated on a stool at the front of the tent. Around him, his servants were busy preparing small tables laden with bowls of water, twisted pieces of metal, and a wide range of curious artifacts. Behind him, in the shade of the tent, the twelve hooded men who accompanied him were seated, a tremulous hum coming from their cowls.

“Lord Prince,” Zenobia said, deftly bringing the stallion to a halt. Small rocks thrown by the horse’s hooves skittered into the tent. “Are you and your men prepared for battle?”

Aretas looked up from the scroll he was studying, his face bland and his kohl-rimmed eyes languid. He was freshly shaven, and his beard was now only a sketch of dark hair along his lip and cheekbones. A trapezoid had been painted in a dark-red ink on his forehead.

“Of course,” he said in a polite voice. “I am prepared, as are my assistants.” A hand wrapped in a glove of fine steel links over soft leather indicated the hooded men. “My tagma are riding into positions even now. The infantry ar-ithtnoi are soon to follow. Is there ought else you require of me today?”

Zenobia frowned but controlled her temper. “Can you repel the efforts of the Persian magil Can you master them and their powers?”

Aretas smiled, a wintry thing that touched only his lips and. did not crawl up to his eyes, which were cold and dispassionate. He opened his right hand, the fingers uncurling like a claw. A dark light spilled from between his fingers, rippling with lightning.

“I think that I will do as honor demands,” he said, and banished the glamour. “Rome will prevail this day, I think. The Persians did not expect us to field such strength of men.”

A dangerous glitter entered Zenobia’s eyes at the mention of Rome, but she let it pass.

“Then, if all do their duty, we shall have victory this day,” she said, and saluted the Prince. “Tell your dekarchoi to await my signal before they commit to the battle. We must prepare our Persian guests for such a meeting first!”

Aretas inclined his head and stood. Zenobia nodded back and turned her horse and galloped away. From the bluff, as they rode down onto the field, Ahmet could see that the army of the desert cities had managed to reach the plain. The bluff formed the right wing, with Aretas’ cavalry tagma clustered in a dull red mass at its foot. In front of them, a hundred yards down the slope, the Nabatean infantry arithmoi formed a line of blocks of spearmen, archers, and slingers reaching to the west. More cavalry“, these lighter armored, trotted past behind the infantry to take up positions at the far right end of the Nabatean line.

Zenobia and her officers, including a pack of Tanukh, rode along the length of the line. Her Bactrian guards, now kitted out in furs and heavy armor, rode in a block around her, their lances socketed into cups at their right stirrups. At the center, two great blocks of infantry-one of the Pal-myrenes who had joined them at Emesa under the command of Zenobia’s brother Vorodes, and the other formed of the cohorts of the cities of the Decapolis under Akhimos Galerius-were slowly gathering. Zenobia rode past and shouted instructions at Galerius, the commander of the De-capoli arithmoi. He waved back at her and then resumed his argument with the commanders of the various bands of city militia.

Behind the gangs of infantry, clad in shields and carrying spears, was a motley collection of mercenary horsemen- the expatriate Persians in full lamellar mail from head to toe and cone-shaped helmets, the Indian knights in bright tabards and glittering chain mail with long bows that stood up their saddles. Another band of Axumite javelin men ran past, down the road, heading for one of the avenues that had been left between the blocks of infantry. Zenobia took up a position on a rise to the left of the road, fifty or sixty yards from the mercenary horse. Ahmet was pleased beyond measure that they had stopped for a moment, for it gave him an opportunity to relax against the constant fear of being thrown from the horse.

Farther to the left of Vorodes’ infantry, a great block of Palmyrene knights stood at the ready. Clad in half-armor for the riders and felt barding studded with metal plaques for the horses, the assembled nobles of Palmyra, Damascus, and the other cities of the Decapolis anchored the western, or leftmost, end of the line. Beyond them, the Tanukh light horse was a haze of small bands of riders screening the knights and the flank of the army.

Zenobia stood up in her stirrups and stared out over the battlefield. Unobtrusively Ahmet supported her legs, her thighs firm and strong under his hands.

“That is Shahin’s banner, all right, and his usual flock of pretty birds are with him.”

The Persian army had drawn up on the near side of the shallow stream in a shallow crescent. From the greenery along the banks at the eastern end of the plain, it seemed that there was a marshy area along the streambed. The Persian line began on the far right with a wedge of medium cavalry. From where he sat astride the stallion, Ahmet could barely make out a thicket of lances strapped to the backs of the riders, their tips gleaming in the morning sun, and dull armor. The horses seemed unarmored, and the men were holding bows at the ready, resting on their pommels.

Next, the center of the Persian line was composed of four blocks of infantry-first a rank of spearmen with wicker and leather shields, then archers, then more spearmen. Though the bands of men were not as precisely ordered as a Roman army, there were sharply defined breaks between each block. Behind the infantry, almost at the ford where the road crossed the stream over a broad wooden bridge, there was a great green tent, and before it, mounted on a shining white horse, was the small figure of the enemy commander. His armor reflected the sun with a golden glow and around him his companions were brightly attired in silks and jewels. Behind him, a great standard with a white wheel on it had been hung from a tall pole. Two parasols shaded the enemy commander, each of green silk.

“They seem better suited for a hunting party and picnic than battle,” Ahmet mused.

Zenobia snorted. “At Nisibis, when the Boar smashed the army of the Eastern Empire and opened the road to Anti-och, Shahin had command of the right wing-it is said that he and his cronies spent the day in a pleasant feast while ten thousand men died on the field of battle. He is the King of King’s cousin, and well beloved of Chrosoes, but he is a poor leader of men. While he holds command, we will win the day.”

To the left of the Persian spearmen, there were two large wedges of heavy cavalry-and these men, Ahmet could see, were clad in mail from head to toe, as were many of their horses. Many banners danced in the air above the Persian horse. Finally, a hundred yards in front of the Persian army, many lightly armed archers in kilts and metal caps were deployed in a long line. The black men, the Blem-menye who served Zenobia, had also advanced before the line of the Palmyrene army, and now the air between the two hosts was briefly marked by the sparkle of arrows in flight. A few men fell, but Ahmet could see no great purpose in their action.

“Odd…” Zenobia whistled and one of the Tanukh couriers pushed his horse through the throng of Bactrians deployed around the Queen. He grinned saucily when he pulled his horse alongside Zenobia’s.

“Gadimathos, I see no light horsemen to screen the Persian line from our archers. Where are they?”

The Tanukh shrugged easily, his lean brown face wrinkled in a smile. “The Lakhmids are afraid to face the true men, the Tanukh. They refuse to fight.”

Zenobia shook her head in dismay. ‘.’Go to ibn’Adi and Al’Quraysh and tell them to watch for the Lakhmids. They must be somewhere about-send out scouts to cover the flanks. They may be trying to ride around our line.“

The Queen reached back and squeezed Ahmet’s leg as the command troop cantered forward. “Worry not, priest, soon the battle will begin in earnest and you’ll forget your fear of riding!”

Ahmet held her a little tighter and she laughed, her voice gay. They turned and rode back along the length of the Palmyrene line at a slower pace.

“Why is the absence of these Lakhmids a cause for concern?” Ahmet was confused.

Zenobia frowned again and pointed back to the west, where the Persian knights were lined up. “Without their own horse-archers to protect their heavy cavalrymen, our Tanukh will spend the day shooting at them with arrows. The heavy horse cannot catch these desert raiders, so they’ll do nothing but bleed! I had heard that Shahin had employed a tribe of the Lakhmids to provide him with light horse for scouting and such work in battle. Another mistake. If they are not here, that will cost him dearly.”

Ahmet nodded.

“What is happening in the unseen world?” she asked suddenly. It took Ahmet a moment to focus; the ether had begun to crackle with invisible forces.

“Aretas is putting forth his strength,” Ahmet said, his voice breathy. It was sometimes difficult to breathe and speak and see in the world of the unseen all at the same time. “The Persian magi have raised a shield to protect their men from anything we might send against them. He is probing it, seeking weakness or a crevice. The Red Prince is strong!“

Zenobia nodded and looked quizzically out over the battlefield. There was a tang in the air, like before a storm, but the sky was clear and blue. Trumpets rang out, and there was a rattle of drums among the Persian battalions. The Persian center, to her surprise, began to advance at a walk up the slope. Their spears moved in a shining wave, falling forward. She stood in the stirrups again and looked east and west. To the right, on the east, opposite the Na-bateans, bands of light infantrymen-wearing no more than woolen kilts and carrying long spears-had run out between the end of the infantry line and the cavalry at the end of the Persian front. These men, too, advanced up the slope toward the Blemmenye skirmishers. Arrows were flying a little thicker now.

To the west, the two wedges of Persian heavy cavalry remained at rest, though their banners and flags were dipping and rising in response to those of the main command group at the bridge. Along the center of the line, the Persian archers began to fire over the line of Palmyrene slingers, ranging for the blocks of infantry behind them. Zenobia considered the movement of forces.

“This is strange,” Ahmet whispered from behind her. “The-Persian shield is proof against Aretas, even though the air boils with his power and the strength of his priests. And, it advances in concert with their men.”

“Why is that strange?” Zenobia said absently. She whistled again and called out to her own officers. “Send the Tanukh against the Persian cataphracti and clibanariV One of the couriers spurred his horse away and pelted off toward the west. At the same time, two of her banner men raised a dark flag with a white symbol on it and dipped it twice. Soon afterward, the bands of Tanukh on the left coalesced into three big groups and rode off toward the Persian lines at great speed.

Ahmet began to sweat and hum a focusing meditation under his breath. The light shield that he had raised around Zenobia and himself as soon as the word had come in the morning that the Persians were near surged with power in the unseen world, becoming a complex series of geometric lattices around them. The lattices separated, becoming shells of light that counterrotated around him in dizzying array. The hidden world was afire to his eye. The Persians continued to advance, and the flickering dark shield that protected them advanced as well. Aretas and his priests hammered at it with increasing ferocity, their sendings cutting sizzling tracks through the universe of forms and patterns whose reflected shadows were men and stones and the sky. Ahmet could feel the power drain like a tugging on his sleeve as the Nabateans began leaching the currents under the earth and in the sky to power the cyan bolts they hurled at the dark shield.

“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 Rha-zates 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 for ward 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 th amp;- 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 the 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. Mo hammad 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 subcomman-ders 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 chain-mail 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 leather 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 Palmy-renes 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 that 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 Naba-tean tagma who were still sitting ahorse under the eaves of the bluff. She rose up, and dimly, though 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 peeping 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.

The falling body, seen by all of the horsemen crowded below, fell for what seemed to be an eternity, and then it was suddenly wrapped in flame and struck the ground with a thudding shock. It shattered, sending burning fragments of the Prince in all directions.

Zenobia and Ahmet flinched back from the explosion, raising their arms to protect their faces. The Nabatean officers stared up at the cliff, jaws agape, the blood draining from their faces. Ahmet reinforced his shields, dimly perceiving that some vast form had stalked across the battlefield in the hidden world and had reached into the tent to tear the patterns of the priests and the Prince into tiny scraps. Now it raised its head in triumph, bellowing a vast roar of victory. Even in the seen world, the dim echo of it could be heard, rising above the tumult of battle like the shriek of the damned. Ahmet shuddered at the shape that he saw flickering in and out of perception. Tripartite wings flexed 6n the back of the towering figure and tentacles writhed where arms and hands would be. The thing turned then, and a single burning cat-yellow eye swept the field.

Ahmet clenched Zenobia tight, his mind gibbering in atavistic fear as that gaze passed over him. Feeling only an incredible sourceless dread, the Queen quailed tn his arms, burrowing her head into his chest. But it did not remark them and it strode away, the earth shaking at its invisible passing. Ahmet breathed a little easier, his eyes wide in fear. He stared across the field and for the first time was aware, like a hunted creature is suddenly aware of the stalking cat, of a distant black shape, like a wagon, behind the Persian lines.

“Oh, my Queen, the enemy is surpassing strong. It must be one of the great ones, the mobehedan mobad, come against us.”

Zenobia shuddered one more time and then pushed herself away from Ahmet’s broad chest and the sanctuary it offered. She wiped her lips and rapped the plump Nabatean sharply on the side of his head with her riding stick,.

“You command now, Obodas. Get these men moving right now, or I’ll kill you where‘ you stand.” Her fingers rested lightly on the saber she carried slung at the side Of her saddle horn. Obodas stared up at her with blank eyes. Then he focused and, after taking a shaky breath, nodded. The Nabatean officers ran to their horses and began saddling up.

Zenobia turned her horse; she had to get back to the center and see what had happened on the left wing. Ahmet clung to her like a sailor clinging to a spar in a storm-tossed sea. He was shaking and dripping with clammy sweat.

The Lord Dahak sagged back into the rough horsehair cushions with a long gasp. His hands trembled and for a moment he could barely focus his eyes on the flickering candles that surrounded him in the perfectly dark confines of the wagon. The muscles in his arms and legs twitched involuntarily, the nerves brutalized by the staggering power that he had channeled through his will only moments before. Wearily he leaned over and fumbled at a copper cup beside the pillows. After two tries he managed to raise it to his lips and drank greedily. Red fluid, almost clotted to a gel, spilled in a trail along his cheek. He shuddered again, but the draft restored some of his strength.

The sorcerer crawled to the door of the wagon and rapped on the panel. After a moment the door opened a crack and one of the Uze tribesmen peered in, his eyes wide with fear.

“Drive,” Dahak croaked, his throat raw from the effort of forming the words of summoning. “Make for the camp of the Boar. Send one of the men to him with a message.”

Baraz scratched his full beard, twirling one of the ringlets around his mailed finger in absent thought. The Uze messenger squatted on the ground, chewing on a grass stem.

“ ‘This is a matter of men, now.’ That is the Lord Dahak’s message?”

The Uze spit sideways on the ground and nodded his head.

Baraz curled his lip, and then shook his head. “Go. Make sure that the Lord Dahak reaches the camp safely.”

No matter what the wizard thought he had accomplished, the Boar could hear the tenor in the riot of noise around him changing. The Nabateans on the left flank had finally charged down from the slope under the bluff and the entire Persian left was falling back before their lances. Baraz had thrown the last of his spearmen and archers into the fray, but his entire left wing was now being ground backward. Soon the heavy horses of the knights commanded by the Great Prince Shahin would be driven into the marshy ground along the streambed.

“Ready my men,” he shouted at the Luristani guardsmen. He smiled, his face creased with a wild grin, at the courtiers who were still held close to him, like bright feathered birds in a cage of steel. “We are needed on the left, so we are going to charge against the junction of the Red Men and the Romans. Their line is weakest there!” He heeled his horse and the entire band of seventy or eighty men surged forward. The courtiers began to weep and scream in fear, but the Luristani troopers crowded them with their horses, driving them forward. He still had no news from the right wing. Last he had seen, the Roman light horse had charged Khadames clibanari behind a volley of arrows.

Mohammed slashed overhand at the Persian knight, feeling his light cavalry saber ring like a bell as it smote the Persian’s heavy longsword. The Persian knight hacked at him again, and Mohammed kneed his horse away in time to see the stroke part the air where he had been a moment before. Around him there was a confused swirl of men, horses, and ringing steel. The Tanukh charge had taken the Persians by surprise and had shattered the first two ranks of the Iron Hats. But once that momentum was spent, the heavily armored Persians had waded in, swords flashing. The Tanukh, despite incredible personal bravery, were being butchered.

Al’Quraysh spurred his horse away, trying to break out of the melee. Another Persian swung his horse around, its armored head butting against his own. The mare whinnied in pain and fear and reared. Mohammed angled her away from the Persian, hacking across her head at the man. His blade rang on the attacker’s armored arm and slid away. The Persian hacked at him overhand with an axe, and his shield splintered into fragments as the blade bit through the roundel. Mohammed shoved the ruined shield at the man and slapped his horse hard. It bolted away, carrying him past the knight. Suddenly a lane opened in the fray and he galloped into it.

A tight knot of his men appeared out of the battle ahead, charging through two Persians in only half-armor. A lance slammed into one of the cataphracts and speared through his lower belly and out his back, slick with gore. The man screamed and toppled off of his horse, taking the lance with him. The Arab whooped and drew a curved longsword from a sheath over his back. Mohammed was among them in an instant.

“Sound the retreat,” he yelled, his voice hoarse from shouting. “We fall back to the main body. Gather the men!” Trumpets began to shrill and the sole remaining bannerman waved his standard in a figure-eight pattern. Mohammed and his men charged uphill, their.fleet horses stretching full out. Behind them the other Tanukh struggled to fight free from the mass of Persians, but most were surrounded and hewn down. Al’Quraysh turned his horse as the Tanukh broke free, waving his saber above his head to rally the remaining men.

An arrow, fired from the Persian footmen screening the edge of their infantry battalions, whickered out of the air and smashed into his side. He staggered and stared down at the broken shaft hanging limply from his armpit. A cold rush of sickening sensation filled his right side. The saber fell from nerveless fingers. Two of his men, one of whom he dimly recognized as ibn’Adi, closed their horses up on either side, supporting him.

“Fall back on the Queen,” he whispered. “She will command us…”

Having fought free of the swarm of desert bandits, Khad-ames rallied his household men to him. The two blocks of Persian heavy horse were disorganized by the melee, and he began shouting orders to regroup them. The general struggled against a terrible desire to scratch his nose, but that was impossible under the heavy helmet that he wore. His splendid armor, carefully buffed and polished by his servants the night before, was spattered with dark-red gore and dinged from a hundred blows. His arms were incredibly weary and he did not think that he could raise his sword one more time. He peered out of the narrow eyeslit and saw that his men were regrouping quickly.

And still the Palmyrene heavy horse across the field had not charged into them.

“Form up! Form up!” he shouted, and spurred his horse forward. “Prepare to advance!” He still had the strength to raise his sword high and wave it in the direction of the enemy.

Zenobia, despite her urgent desire to reach the left wing, had only reached the road at the center of the field when there was a roar of men’s voices to her right. She wheeled her horse and peered down into the confused mass of struggling men that marked the right wing of the Persian line. Once Obodas and his knights had charged into the fray there, the Persian wing, already pressed almost to collapse by the Nabatean infantry, had given way. Now the Persians were streaming back from the line of battle, heading for the bridge and the crossing over the stream.

“Mars and Venus!” she whispered, and Ahmet jerked his head up at the strange tone in her voice. A band of gaily attired men had charged out of the Persian rear, led by a giant of a man with a flowing black beard. He was bareheaded, and even from two hundred yards, Ahmet could see that his face was lit by an unholy joy in battle. He swung a long mace with a spiked head. As the Egyptian watched, he and his armored horse plowed through three Nabatean knights and the mace lashed out, smashing the helmet of one of the Petrans into bloody gore. A great shout went up from the Persian lines.

Zenobia’s face had gone utterly pale. “It is the Boar, Shahr-Baraz… I’ve been tricked!”

Ahmet seized her arm and shook her. She snapped from her stupefaction.

“The battle is not done,” he hissed at her. “We have the upper hand. You are winning.”

She stared back at him with a lost expression on her face.

“He has never lost a battle,” she whispered. “He has slain his thousands, and his tens of thousands…”

Before them, down the slope, the giant and the bear like men who formed a wedge behind him were wading through the Nabatean lines like butchers. Many of the red-armored men turned to flee at the sight of the Boar, and the entire Palmyrene advance suddenly stalled.

“You must rally your men, O Queen. They will believe in you. Your legend is stronger than his!” Ahmet stared into her eyes, his will fully bent upon her.

She stared back and then fire kindled in her and she turned away, rising in the saddle, her clear high voice ringing over the battlefield. “Palmyra! To me! Palmyra and Zenobia!” The stallion leapt forward as she dug in her heels. A wild scream of rage flew from her and the entire battlefield froze, men staring up in shock as she and her Bactrians hurtled down into the melee like a stroke of lightning.

Baraz whirled around, hearing a great cry go up from the Romans, and he saw a black stallion rushing toward him with a solid block of lancers at its back. A slim figure in golden armor and a winged helm stood in the saddle, a silver sword raised in one hand. The Boar blinked twice and his vision focused enough to see that it was a woman.

Zenobia! His heart raced with surprise. He had heard rumors that the Queen of Silk was wont to lead her men in battle, but he had not believed it. Around him he felt the tide of battle shift again; the Romans had almost broken when he and the pretty birds had charged, but now they had taken heart again. Arrows fell around him like rain. He spun the heavy charger and pressed back through the struggling horsemen around him.

“Zenobia and Palmyra!” The shouts of the Romans rang over the clatter of steel and iron, and the screams and moans of the dying. The Romans pressed forward again, their front a bristling thicket of spears and swords. The Persian courtiers and the Luristani guardsmen were overwhelmed and went down fighting, axes and maces biting at the shields of the infantry to the last.

Beyond the battle Baraz gathered the remains of the horsemen who had been fighting on the left wing. One of them, to his disgust, was the Great Prince Shahin, his magnificent bronze and gold armor dented and muddy. The Great Prince’s face was haggard, and blood seeped from a cut on his forehead. The withers of his horse were caked in blood. Baraz counted heads; only fourteen horsemen remained to him. He looked to the right, up the Persian line, and saw to his horror that the fighting in the center had gone worse than before. The infantry had fallen back almost to the bridge and he was close to being cut off.

“Fall back to the bridge,” he shouted over the din. The Persians trotted west as fast as their weary horses could carry them.

The earth shook with the thunder of thirty thousand hooves. Dust billowed up from the rocky ground, rising in a great cloud behind Khadames and his knights as they stormed up the low hill at the western end of the battle. The Palmyrenes who had been sitting for the last hour and a half on the hillock were at last beginning to gather into a wedge to charge, but Khadames screamed in delight, his arm strong again. They were too late. They had waited too long for their reinforcements, and now he had the momentum against them. The sacrifice of the bandits had been for nothing. The Persian commander’s face split in a terrible grin. The ground sped by under his charger as eight thousand Persian heavy horse rushed up the hill in a great crescent.

Zenobia thrust with the point of her saber. The silver blade danced off of the Persian knight’s noseguard and then slid into his eyeslit. His whole body jerked convulsively and the Queen, screaming with delight, whipped the blade out, the first five inches sluicing blood into the air in a spray. Ahmet looked away as the knight toppled off his mount. Zenobia wheeled her horse and galloped out of the fray to the west. Ahmet’s white headdress was gone and his long dark hair blew free. His face was spotted with blood. The Queen trotted up the hill toward the road and her command tent. Half of the Bactrians who had ridden with her into the fight rode out again, hurrying to rejoin her. Only two of her messengers remained.

The field was clouded with dust, making it hard to see either end of the battle. Zenobia resettled the winged golden helmet that she had been wearing on her head. One of the wings had been sheared off and it was unbalanced. It still would not sit right, so she pulled it off of her head with a gasp and wrenched the other wing off. The heavy gold struck the ground and stood there, impaled on the wingtip in the broken earth. Zenobia uncurled the braid that she had woven of her hair that morning and let it fall across her back.

“Report!” she rasped to the messengers who had rejoined her. “What is happening!”

One of the dispatch riders, a Tanukh, bowed his head wearily.

“My Queen,” he said, “the Lord Mohammed was struck down on the left and has been carried back to the camp. He lives but is sorely wounded. The Emir ibn’Adi commands the remainder of the Tanukh, but…” He pointed helplessly off to the west.

A great roar echoed through the dust, and everyone turned to stare in that direction. A heavy crash, like a thousand cast-iron pots thrown into a gravel pit, echoed out of the tan clouds, and then, suddenly, the ground to the west of the road was filled with Palmyrene horsemen, knights and lancers alike, in flight. The silver shapes of Persian heavy horsemen loomed out of the dust in pursuit, their banners fluttering.

Zenobia groaned and crushed her fist into the mane of her horse. Ahmet gripped her shoulder hard, but some sound behind him made him turn.

To the east, downstream, beyond where the Nabateans had advanced to smash the right wing of the Persian army, a column of horsemen had appeared, riding hard up the valley. Their robes were black and their banners were a long snake on a field of sable. Ahmet’s eyes twitched left and right. To the right, the bluff where Aretas had planted his tent was abandoned, only a scattering of bodies and the forlorn banners of the Prince of the Rose Red City. To the left, the Nabatean horse and spearmen were still fighting, hacking their way into the right flank of the remaining Per sian infantry. There was nothing between the riders in black and the unprotected rear of the Palmyrene army.

“Zenobia,” he whispered, “the missing horsemen-the Lakhmids-what color are their banners?”

“A red snake on a field of black,” the Queen said, turning, and then she saw them as well. Her pupils dilated for a moment, and then she raised her head. Fire still burned in her eyes, but with it there was a realization of the extent of the disaster she had led her men into. She gestured to the lone remaining trumpeter. She put the mouthpiece of the trumpet to her lips and blew a long single note. Across the field of battle, the weary commanders of the Roman army raised their heads, staring behind them. Some could see the Queen, shining golden amid her officers, others could only hear her.

“Fall back,” she cried out, a mournful sound on the suddenly quiet field. “Fall back!”