Shadow of Ararat

THE ROMAN CAMP, NORTH OF THE KERENOS RIVER, ALBANIA

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Dwyrin shuffled his feet, his breath puffing white in the chill predawn air. He stood next to Zoe, at the end of the line of their cohort, at parade rest. Quietly he checked his kit, making sure that all the straps were snugged tight and that nothing was hanging loose. The sky was pitch black-he guessed that clouds had come up in the night and covered the stars. Fitful light cast by lanterns and torches, illuminated him and the other thaumaturges clustered around him. They stood in four rows, their backs to their tents, grouped by rank. In the front row, the senior thaumaturges stood at ease, surrounded, to Dwyrin’s inner eye, by soft patterns that said warm and comfortable.

In the privacy of his mind, he cursed the priests at the school for neglecting to teach him anything useful like the so-obvious spells for keeping warm on a dark morning like this. Still, he was better off than Odenathus and Zoe, who were tightly bundled in every scrap of cloak or fur they could find. On the other side of the Palmyrene boy, one of the Gaulish wizards was almost grinning, blowing frosty breath up into the air. He didn’t think that it was that cold. Zoe he could feel trembling right at his side. For a moment he considered putting an arm around her, but then he thought of the knife at her side and rejected the idea.

“Soldiers, attention!”

The tribune, with all four centurions at his back, paced along the front of the assembly. The odd pieces of glass that were suspended in front of his eyes on wire frames glittered in the light of the torches. Like the centurions, he was clad in a heavy wool cloak and a doublet of furred leather. It looked warm too.

“Soon,” the tribune said in a carrying voice, “there will be battle. The armies of Persia advance upon us in haste. The weather will turn soon and close the passes to the south. This King of Kings, this Chrosoes, desires to decide the contest between his treacherous Empire and ours now. He hurries toward defeat. Some of you have never been in battle before. I will say this to you! If you follow orders and keep the men of your unit around you, if you obey the commands of your five-leader and your centurion, if you hold your place in the line of battle and do not run, you will live and we shall have victory.”

Dwyrin straightened up a little more, for the tribune and the centurions had come to the end of the line closest to them. Zoe stared straight ahead, over the heads of the men in front of them. Dwyrin wrenched his eyes aside.

“Some of you,” the tribune continued, walking behind them, “will not be fighting in the line of battle. You will be deployed forward of the main army, to harass and threaten the march and deployment of the enemy. This is a new strategy. It has not been tested in battle. It may fail, but I believe that it will succeed. I believe that we, the thaumaturgic arm of the Legion, will be decisive. Our success in the coming battle, operating in teams, will make all the difference.”

Once more before his men, the tribune turned, surveying them. “The Emperor is watching, and through him, the city and the Senate and the people. Do not disappoint them.”

Dwyrin felt a chill in his mind and throat, but it was not from the air.

“Do you think there will be battle tomorrow?” Dwyrin’s voice was soft in the darkness. With Eric gone, they had taken to sleeping in one tent, even though it was crowded. The nights were cool enough that the warmth of the three of them filled the hide walls. Even by morning it was not unpleasant-at least until you had to go outside. He knew that Zoe was awake-he could feel her moving under the woolen blanket. She was thinking, as he was, wondering what would happen in the next day.

“No,” she said, turning over to face him. Even in the very dim light filtering through the small opening in the front of the shelter, he could make out the planes of her face, the darkness of her eyes. Dwyrin wondered if Oden-athus were awake. Probably not, he thought, he sleeps like a stone. He struggled in his own bedding and managed to free a hand to scratch his nose.

“The scouts,” she continued, “are still coming and going from the command tents. When the enemy is close enough, we will march. Then we will know that battle is close.”

“Have you been in a battle before-one like this, not like the city?”

“No.” Dwyrin stopped rubbing his nose. It seemed that Zoe was unsure-a strange emotion for her. They had worked together for weeks now, practicing together, learning to fight as one. Eric’s death had wrecked their original plan to fight as two pairs. Now they were learning, again, to fight as a three. In some ways it was much easier this way. Both Zoe and Odenathus were quite skilled, though they lacked the raw power that Dwyrin could summon. They could bind a shield of defense far faster than he could, but while they covered him, he could bring fire or cast it with blurring speed. Colonna, watching them train, had commented that they reminded him of the old Thebans, who would fight in pairs, each with a different, specialized weapon.

“I have never seen a great battle.” She paused. “Before Tauris, I had never seen battle at all. No struggle to the death, no corpses piled up like sheaves of wheat beside the road. No friends die.” Something caught in her throat and she turned her face away from him. Dwyrin felt a rush of pain too, thinking of what it meant to lose their friend.

“Zoe,” he said, touching her hair, “I miss Eric too. It was just bad luck that he was thrown into the river.”

She mumbled something, but he could not hear what it was, her face was still turned away. He stared up at the ceiling of the tent, feeling his own tears well up in his chest, clenching at his heart. But, like her, he did not cry out loud, letting them trickle down his cheeks instead. Finally he slept, his fingers still touching her hair.

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