The Shadow of Ararat

by Thomas Harlan

  She nodded and turned back to her watch. Utter quiet surrounded them as they drifted downstream in a universe of dark clouds and damp, clinging mist. Suddenly the skiff tipped a little to the side and began to crab. Dwyrin raised his pole, peering downstream into darkness. The water smoothed up into a curve in front of the skiff and Zoë caught sight of a standing wave. She struck out with her pole and caught the edge of the bridge piling.

  Dwyrin saw it too, and he too pushed away with his staff. The skiff spun away from the looming brickwork. Their staves scraped across the mossy surface as each put his full strength behind the poles. The wave around the piling raised them up and then they shot down the other side. Dwyrin immediately turned to the other side of the skiff and dragged a heavy rope with a large bronze hook at the end out from under the rear seat. Eric ducked down and squeezed behind him to get out of the way. The current was running faster now, and to the right. Dwyrin felt a massive shape in front of him, and then the wall of the city appeared between parting veils of mist.

  The Hibernian closed his eyes and felt perception jar around him as the flickering shape of the wall swam into view. There was very little time, but he had proved to the centurion's satisfaction that of the five, he could drop into the second entrance the fastest. His control was still very poor, but now they needed speed most. A shimmering ring of green and yellow blazed to his right and he hurled the hook with all his strength. In the front of the skiff, Zoë had dug her pole into the river bottom. The skiff rotated at the back end, around the fulcrum of the pole, and the back flank of the boat crunched into the wall.

  Dwyrin's hook clanged soundlessly into the ring and he whipped the rope around a stay in the back of the boat. Zoë felt the skiff shudder to a halt and grind up against the city wall. The current continued to press at the boat, driving it into the bricks. Eric and Dwyrin began hauling on the rope, and the skiff inched back against the river. Finally they reached the ring and the narrow walkway under it. Zoë pushed past both of them, her long braids piled on the top of her head, and clambered up the slippery stones onto the walkway. Eric handed up the blankets and two lumpy cotton bags. Dwyrin knelt in the bottom of the boat and slapped Odenathus gently on the cheeks.

  The Palmyrene boy's eyes flickered open and he groaned, the first audible sound since he had settled into his trance across the river.

  "Quiet!" Dwyrin whispered, holding his hand over the boy's mouth. "We're right under the gate." The Hibernian helped Odenathus to his feet and they managed to struggle up onto the walkway. Zoë and Eric had already disappeared. Dwyrin gave Odenathus a moment to catch his breath while he carefully unhooked the bronze grapnel from the ring. Sighing at the waste of a good boat, he lowered the hook into the water and then let the rope slip from his fingers. The skiff, no longer moored, grated on the wall once and then spun away on the current.

  "Come on, let's find the others." Dwyrin breathed in Odenathus' ear. The other boy nodded and stood up, his frozen hands tucked into his armpits. It was particularly cold down by the water. They crept off along the walkway. Dawn was less than an hour away.

  —|—

  Thyatis' eyes opened, her mind clear and free of the confusion of sleep. She reached over and found Nikos' ear by touch. Her pinch woke him, though he too remained quiet. Deep night was on the city, but something was happening. It seemed that the air itself had grown heavier. Thyatis rose and gathered up her sword and the long knife. She was already wearing a thick cotton doublet and leather leggings. Over this she had a shirt of iron scale mail that Bagratuni had excavated from some ancient hoard in the countryside. To complete it, he had found an ancient helmet with an iron strip along the top of the helm and flaring cheek protectors. She pulled this over her hair, her braids coiled into a cushion at the top of her head. The leather strap snugged tight on her chin. Beside her, Nikos had also risen and moved among the men, waking them quietly.

  Thyatis climbed the steps out of the cellar and carefully pushed the door open into the ground floor of the shop they had taken over the day before. The shop was still deserted, all of the goods packed away. Piles of wooden ladders filled the space, leaving only an aisle between them. She glided to the front, where heavy shutters were closed and barred against thieves. A small spyhole was set into the center of the shutter, and she swung the little iron flap up from it and peered out. The southern square was empty and dark, but by the light of a single lantern hung from a stone wall where the main thoroughfare of the city emptied into the square, she saw that a heavy fog was filling the air.

  There was a faint sound behind her, the clink of armor. She turned and Nikos was standing there. Men were filing into the room behind him.

  "Fog," she breathed. "We couldn't be luckier. Send the word to the other shops. We attack as soon as everyone is in position."

  Nikos gripped her shoulder with a gloved hand.

  "Are you sure?" His voice was faint and filled with worry. "We've had no word from outside..."

  "Victory to the bold," she said, her teeth white in the dim light. "It's the hour before dawn and there's a heavy fog. Regardless of what the Roman army does, we have a chance to capture the bastion by ourselves."

  The Illyrian regarded her for a moment more, then shook his head slightly and moved off to prepare the men. Thyatis turned back to the spyhole. Within the next ten grains, they would be ready. She felt a familiar thrill of expectation. Hundreds of men were preparing to move at her command, like a strong swift horse responding to her will. They would live or die upon the strength of her planning and courage. Her fingers curled around the wire-wrapped hilt of her sword, feeling the grooves worn by long use. Even the borrowed helmet felt right on her head.

  —|—

  Galen stood in the mist, his gilded armor shrouded by an even heavier cloak. A servant stood by him, holding his plumed helmet and sword. Around him he could hear the quiet movement of thousands of men. Just to his left, on the hard-packed mud of the road, a tortoise rolled up through the darkness, the squeak of its huge wooden wheels swallowed by the liberal application of all of the pig grease that Heraclius' foragers could steal. He strained to see forward through the mist that swallowed the bridge. There was nothing there, only shades of black. He rubbed his nose, feeling a tide of apprehension rise in him. For a brief moment he wished that he were his brother Aurelian. Aurelian had never felt the slightest fear in battle or any concern for his own safety. He wondered how Maxian was faring, buried under scribe-work in the palace. Galen pushed thoughts of his brothers away. The river rolled past, silent in the fog.

  —|—

  Moisture beaded on the massive beams that formed the gate of the city. The fog licked against the black stones and water puddled on the pavement. Dwyrin and Zoë crouched at the base of the gate, a dull gray cloak thrown over them. Under the wool it was still bitterly chill, but their shared warmth made it a little more bearable. The Hibernian was on his hands and knees, concentrating on the join between the two halves of the gate. The left valve of the gate was faced with a nine-inch-wide strip of iron that overlapped the right-hand side. Zoë was holding the cloak up over them in a tent.

  Dwyrin shuddered, feeling the vibration of the spells etched into the oaken panels, and breathed out slowly to settle his mind. He descended again into the second entrance, and then the third. Perception folded away from him like the leaves of some infinite flower, each layer revealing ten thousand other layers. The cold receded as he did so, and the gates rose up, glittering with hidden power. A complex geometry held them closed against an attacker, delicate traceries of power and form a hundred levels deep. The boy was stunned by the work that had gone into the defense. He quailed for a moment in the face of that complexity.

  Zoë, who had also descended into the hidden world with him, though slower, whispered: "Ignore all that, look at the stones."

  He looked down, dragging his gaze away from the subtly shifting patterns of the gate. The heavy volcanic stones of the roadway and the gate were dull and ine
rt, sullen black lozenges. No power crept through them like an infinite number of glowing worms. They were stolid and well worn by the passage of thousands of feet. Dwyrin's concentration focused. His fingers dug at the cold stones, and his perception flowed into the pavement, seeking for even a tiny spark of fire.

  At last, deep under the gate, in the foundation of the tower platform, he found it. A small thing, only a whisper of fire, trapped in a great slab of basalt that had been laid to form the base of the gate itself. His spirit hand wrapped around the little flame and his unseen breath blew on it. It dimmed and then flickered brighter. He drew on the power of the other stones, weak as it was, and slowly it burned hotter and hotter.

  Zoë shivered under the cloak. The cold from the river and the mist was creeping up her legs and thighs. The Hibernian was still in a trance, his fingers trembling on the pavement, working in the deep stones. She rolled back and forth from her left foot to her right, trying to keep some circulation in them. Dwyrin suddenly shuddered and looked up.

  "Let's go," he croaked. Zoë pulled him upright, startled at the hot flush in his skin. She carefully folded the woolen cloak aside and pushed him down the walkway at the side of the gate. The boy stumbled ahead of her, his skin steaming in the cold air. Behind them, the stones under the gate made a popping sound.

  —|—

  The sound of hundreds of running feet echoed back from the dark wall that towered over the southern square. Thyatis jogged through the darkness, following the dim shapes of her men running in front of her. The first rank of men were carrying long ladders, scrounged from the city in the previous weeks, and the pylons that had so vexed Jusuf. The wall that rushed toward them was twenty feet high on the city side, and the ladders were a good thirty feet long. Their uppers were wrapped in wool or cotton or hides to deaden the sound of their slapping home on the rampart. The mist continued to hang around them, and the Roman woman realized, as she ran, that it was swallowing the sound of their mass rush across the square.

  The lead men reached sight of the wall, only five or six strides ahead of them, and halted. The men behind continued forward, pushing the ladders above their heads while the lead men swung the base of the ladders to the ground and put their full weight on the bottom rungs. Thyatis slowed, raising her sword to signal the men behind her to slow as well. She heard them pause, and she slid the blade back into the sheath slung over her back.

  The first ladder rose into the air and then swung over to land with a clatter on the embrasure at the top of the wall. Thyatis was already springing up it, her hands and feet on the rungs. She shinnied up the ladder like a monkey, but even before she reached the top, she heard the ringing of alarm bells within the citadel. She screamed in rage and hurled herself over the battlement.

  "Roma Victrix!" She bellowed and the sword was in her hand in a rush. All along the wall, a hundred ladders clattered home and men were already swarming up them. The top of the wall was empty and she sprinted left, toward the nearest guard tower. There was a great commotion in the bastion as hundreds of voices were raised in alarm. Lights began to flicker on in the fog, casting strange shadows. Ahead of her, a door opened and she saw the shapes of men spill out.

  The first Persian had only a spear, his armor forgotten in his rush to reach the wall. She whipped out of the fog, her sword a horizontal blur that hewed through his exposed neck in a spray of blood. He was still gasping for air, his hand raised to his oddly constricted throat, and she was past him. The spear clattered to the stones. The next man was in half-armor with an axe, and the men behind him had spears and shields. Thyatis felt a tremendous rage bubbling up inside her and as it crested, she howled and was among them, her blade a spinning wheel of destruction.

  Her knife hand trapped the axe head swinging at her from the right and the sword in her left hand licked out, sliding between the Persian's ribs. She kicked him away, the blade coming free with a popping sound, and spun into the next man. His spear stabbed at her, but she was past the point and the long knife was buried in his throat. Blood spewed and her hands grew slick with it. The edges of her vision faded to gray and the world around her seemed to slow. Her sword blurred overhead and the blocking spear of the man on the right split in half with a crack. A sword stabbed from the left and she twisted sideways, taking it on the scaled shirt, where it slid aside, sparking against the heavy iron leaves.

  She hewed at the swordsman's arm and the blade cut deep. He screamed, though the sound was very distant, like the clangor of arms behind her on the rampart or the howling that rose from the courtyard. She smashed the injured man in the nose with her forearm, bowling him over, and whirled to the right. The spearman had thrown his broken weapon away and dragged a dagger out of his girdle. He lunged and she caught his blade on the knife in her right hand. Her wrist flexed, twisting the dagger away, and she punched him, throwing him backward. The spearman's foot slipped off the edge of the walkway and his other hand clawed at empty air for support. Thyatis grinned wildly through the blood streaking her face and snap-kicked him in the chest. He disappeared backward into the mist, his mouth a round O of surprise.

  Time suddenly snapped back into focus and her awareness expanded to encompass everything around her. The bastion was alive with running men and blazing lights. Something had happened to drive the fog back, a stiff wind swirling off the main tower of the gate complex. Her men were still pouring over the wall, but now Persians in the courtyard below and in the other towers were filling the air with black arrows. Armenians clambering over the wall were pincushioned. A hundred feet away Nikos was firing back with his own bow. An arrow spanged off the wall next to Thyatis, and she dodged through the door the Persians had rushed out of.

  The room was square and cluttered with the personal effects of the Persian soldiers. She overturned a table to block the far door and skidded to the top of a stairwell that led down into the tower. Some of her Bulgars reached the tower through the rain of arrows outside, panting with effort.

  "Downstairs," she snapped, pointing to the narrow circular staircase. "Clear the other floors so that we can get down into the courtyard." They rushed past her, wolfish smiles on their faces. She stepped back into the doorway.

  The rampart was littered with the bodies of the dead. Men continued to come over the wall, but the Persian arrows were taking a heavy toll. Nikos had disappeared. She stepped farther out, desperate to see the positions of her men. She opened her mouth to shout for her second.

  The sky to the south lit up, a terrific flare of white light that blew back the remaining tatters of fog and was followed, within an instant, by a blast of heated air and a tremendous thundering roar. Thyatis was knocked back against the outer wall, her arm flung up to shield her eyes.

  —|—

  At the end of the bridge, Galen paced among his guards. They loomed over him, hulking Germans in armor of iron rings sewn to a heavy leather backing. Below that they wore furs and sheepskins. Helms with cross-shaped eyeslits covered their heads, and their shields were heavy oblongs of wood faced with riveted leather. Galen was a slight figure among the Northerners, but no man moved save at his command. The last runners had reached him, bringing him word from along the banks of the river. All cohorts stood ready.

  The silence, at first welcome, now seemed oppressive. The mist was beginning, almost imperceptibly, to lighten in the east. Galen felt the grains of time dropping one by one, crushing his plan. He raised his hand, and a man raised his bronze trumpet to his mouth. Galen stared into the mist. Nothing moved across the bridge. He sighed, preparing to order the attack.

  A bell rang, dim and muffled in the fog. Galen started, his hand hanging in air. Another bell rang, and then there was a shrill of whistles and shouting men.

  "We are discovered." He groaned and motioned to the trumpeter. "Sound the attack!"

  The trumpeter took a great breath and then sounded his horn. A clear ringing sound blared across the riverbank, cutting through the mist and its strange deadening effect. The t
rumpeter blew again and now other trumpets answered from the left and the right. Around the Emperor thousands of men were suddenly in motion. The Germans drew themselves tight around him, their shields interlocking to form a wall of sinew and wood. The tortoise creaked and then rumbled forward onto the bridge. Inside it a hundred men in heavy armor strained against the stanchions, pushing the massively heavy thing forward on its twelve wheels.

  Archers ran past the hide-covered walls of the tortoise, their bows in hand and arrows at the ready. They sprinted across the bridge, looking up into the mist. The river echoed with the splashing of hundreds of boats and barges being rolled down the bank on logs. Men shouted as century after century scrambled onto the rafts and began poling them forward across the water. Boats and skiffs, gathered from the river and the marshes, scudded out between the rafts, packed with men.

  Somewhere behind Galen and to his right, there was a sharp snapping sound as a siege engine released, its trunklike pivot arm slapping up into a hide-covered rest. A thick sphere of mottled green glass whistled through the darkness to smash against one of the towers on the river side of the bastion. The tinkling sound of the impact reverberated through the darkness, and then there was a whoosh of flame and the tower lit up with incandescent phlogiston. Screams reached the Emperor's ears then, as the guardsmen on the fighting platform jutting from the tower were wrapped in consuming fire. A lurid red-green glow stabbed through the murk.