The Shadow of Ararat (55 page)

Dwyrin hung limp, eyes filled with tears.

Gods, don't let her see me cry,
he raged at his body. It trembled and twitched at every sound. His mind scrabbled at nerves and muscles, willing them to be still. He heard the scrape of gravel under the girl's foot as her shoulder rolled back to propel the braided snake against his raw back.

The spark roiled and spun in darkness, drawing red rage into its heart. Blanco spread his feet and balanced himself, now poised at the edge of the circle. Colonna was sitting again, a slow smile creeping across his face. The cook appeared at the back door of the kitchens and scattered the mess boys back to their duties. Then she too leaned there, her face in shadow still under the plain lintel of the door. Her dress was blue and long, Dwyrin saw through the rippling pain, bordered with curling red and yellow flowers. The details seemed clear and fine in his sight.

"Five," Blanco growled from the bench. Dwyrin's body betrayed him again, tensing forward, flexing the lines, and then it cast back. The lash was across his back in a bar of white fire. This time the girl had put her shoulder into the blow. The spark whistled down now into inner darkness, growing huge in his mind. Nerves screamed, grating raw stone and branch across him.

"Six."

"Seven."

His voice, distantly, was a high, girlish scream, but his heart was black and filled with darkness. Blanco was smiling now, his eyes half closed, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. And Colonna was leaning back against the dull gray planks of the kitchen wall, his eyes sparkling.

"Eight." Blanco started whistling, a little tune that ran along the scales, up and down again. Dwyrin's right eye failed, consumed by a white-hot blur of sparks only he could see. Only his left remained, filled with the sight of cracked white teeth in Colonna's mouth. He saw the centurion turn and say something to the Sicilian. The other laughed and slapped his knee. Dwyrin snarled in rage, spittle trailing from his mouth.

"Nine."

"Ten."

"Eleven." The girl was pausing now, drawing out each stroke. The disgust of her gaze sank into the raw blood on his back, and he could feel the quiet laughter of the two boys. Spinning hot, the spark suddenly consumed his left eye as well and he saw nothing but staccato white and orange, shot with green and purple. Dwyrin suddenly felt his body snap away, lost in black and red pain. His mind recoiled free and he plunged into the world of forms without meditation, without trance. Power coursed, brilliant flows and patterns turned and wheeled around him. Familiar analogies and themes failed him. A shifting pattern of nothingness trapped him in a confined space. Vortices of form spun in the void around him. The familiar patterns of earth flow and life energy could not be discerned. He grasped futilely for the meditations, for his center, but there was nothing but the spinning spark, shuddering and flaking at the edges.

A ghost rose up before him in the void of forms, each layer rotating in counter to those below; it flexed and bunched, then power leapt and cast from it. Dimly Dwyrin grasped that the girl was laying the lash against him, yet the bands of cerulean and rose that extended from the ghost did not touch him but disrupted against the nothingness. His heart expanded and the spark annihilated the nothingness. The void shattered and broke into mirrored fragments. The surging coil of the earth flow gripped him.

His form solidified in the void. Suddenly the glowing snake shapes of the girl behind him and the boys to either side sprang into focus from the writhing maelstrom of ether. The narrow darkness of the lash flicked toward him and the hot spark flared, consuming it. Dwyrin howled soundlessly, hot yellow light rushing out from him, crashing against the pale-blue geometries that sprang into being between him and the lithe coil of the two boys.

The ghost girl lunged, her spirit-fists red-hot with power as they smashed into him. The spark whirled and turned in his mind, shedding layers of light. Dwyrin steadied himself and lanced back, deep green-black power flowing from the earth below him. Shining brightly he gripped the dull fires of the wooden frame and leached them into his arrow-bright attack.

The girl ghost spun and darted, her dragon coil shading and swallowing his stroke. The two boys attacked simultaneously against the counterspin of the sphere that Dwyrin coalesced around himself. The sphere cracked in a rippling line and the girl struck through it. Dwyrin shuddered, his form collapsing around the pinpoint hole that knifed into him. The three were like quicksilver, gliding away from his attack, tearing long strips out of his defense. He leached the earth, but the currents of power there were far too deep to reach. Stones yielded their hearts to him and burst into powder at his feet. Lightning rippled and he sought to bind the two boy ghosts with a feint; one he caught and held in contest a moment, but the girl swept away the remainder of the sphere and knifed into the red-hot core of his being. The second boy followed her attack, shredding his connection with the earth. Darkness collapsed and left nothing.

Gasping, Dwyrin's true eyes stared into the sun. The swirling disk of Ra now rode in the sky, moments from passing into the clutter of stays, guides, and lines that suspended the woven net above the inner camp. A face obscured the sky. Dwyrin blinked. The girl's face resolved itself, sweat dripping from the side of her nose. Her eyes were slits. She thumbed back his eyelids in turn and slapped the side of his face lightly. Dwyrin choked and tried to sit up. Movement drew ragged pain across his back. Tears welled from his eyes, blinding him.

"He's fine," he heard. "No worse than most. Some salve and a week and he'll be done."

Gentle hands slid under Dwyrin as he gasped, and lifted him up. He blinked furiously, catching sight of a tent roof occluding the pale sky, before he was lain into a stretched canvas bunk. The sound of clinking coins echoed from the roof down to him. The two boys slid quietly into the corners of his vision. The blond one smiled encouragingly, the corner of his mouth stained with red juice.

"Pomegranate?" he ventured. The other boy scowled, thick dark hair inching down over his eyes. He brushed it back as he leaned closer. Dwyrin turned a little toward him. The dark boy reached out of sight and brought a leather canteen with a knurled bronze lip to Dwyrin's mouth. Cool water spilled across his lips and he drank hungrily. The throb of his back was growing greater in his mind. Even before, on the frame, it had not itched so much. The blond boy broke a little of the pomegranate off and pushed it into Dwyrin's mouth. He bit down on the bitter seeds and felt them squeak aside before breaking. Sharp-tasting juice filled his mouth.

"You were lucky," the blond one confided, chewing on the rest of the pomegranate. "Usually they finish the lashing, even if you pass out."

"He's right," the dark-eyed boy asserted, "I lost a mule once, got fifteen, each accounted for and measured." Both boys nodded in agreement.

"Lucky," they said, as Dwyrin slipped first into a gray haze and then nothing.

"Empty!" Zenobia shouted as she galloped down the Via Principalis of the encampment. A dry wind whistled through the streets, blowing thistles and trash in front of it. At the center, before the broad brick front of the headquarters, she pulled up and turned the midnight-black stallion that she had taken to riding to face her companions. Ahmet, Mohammed, and the others cantered up to meet her. The square in front of the commander was of hard-packed earth and flat stones. The building behind Zenobia was shuttered and empty, its doors barred. Around them the camp lay deserted; hundreds of fired-brick buildings stood in neat rows with dirt streets between them. The barrel-vaulted roof of the baths stood off to one side of the square, and Ahmet could see that its doors stood ajar, with sand blown into the doorway.

"Not so much as a chicken or a pig left," the Palmyrene Queen continued, leaning forward in the saddle and scratching the ears of her mount. "So like a Roman, leave nothing, take everything. Al'Quraysh, have your scouts found anything in the vicinity?"

Mohammed shook his head. The
sheykh
Amr ibn'Adi nominally commanded the motley collection of tribesmen, Palmyrenes, Syrians and Nabatean levies who formed the light horse attached to the army. Mohammed was their leader, however, and ibn'Adi spent much of his time as one of Zenobia's close circle of advisors instead. Ahmet had not seen the Southerner happier since they had begun traveling together.

"No, Empress, the hills around us are deserted and even the dwellings of the camp followers are abandoned. Some of my men report that there is a good place to set up camp down the stream three or four miles. Shall we move on and camp there?"

Zenobia laughed, her dark hair a wave of ebony around her head. "What? And waste this perfectly good camp? If we are to do Rome's work, then we will take Rome's privileges! We camp here tonight, and for the next week or two. My brother will be coming soon to meet us here with the rest of the army of the city. Quarter the men, send out foraging parties, and repair any defenses that have fallen into disuse. Go!"

Mohammed made a half bow in the saddle and then galloped off, his robes flying out behind him. The other commanders—Zabda, who commanded the
cataphracti
of the army, drawn chiefly from the heavily armed and armored nobles of the Decapolis, Nabatea, and Syria; and Akhimos Galerius, who led the massed infantry cohorts of the cities—bowed as well and rode off to see to their commands. Zenobia watched them go and sighed once they were out of earshot. She turned her horse again and surveyed those men who remained with her in the square.

"When Vorodes arrives with my infantry, we shall take some time to prepare before we march north." The Queen motioned to ibn'Adi, who was seemingly sleeping on his horse, for his eyes were closed and a soft snore was fluttering his white mustaches.

"Old Father, when you wake up, go around and find those men who are familiar with these hills. Set them out to watch the roads from all directions. Should any man come, I would know of it sooner than a raven could bring it to me."

Ibn'Adi cracked an eye open and nodded, then nudged his horse and they ambled off together toward the road from the south where the army was busily snarling itself in a half-mile-wide mob as detachments attempted to move to their allotted areas of the camp.

The Nabatean Prince, Aretas, watched the old chieftain go and laughed mirthlessly. "That one never sleeps, sister."

Zenobia answered his cold smile with one of her own. "Brother," she said, with only the faintest hint of sarcasm, "I will work out of the headquarters, if you and your priests would prefer the
praetorium
for your quarters. Will you see that the temple fires are lit and the proper accommodations made to the gods?"

Aretas inclined his head, saying: "We would be honored to occupy the house of the commander of the camp, and we will see that the army is not disturbed by ill omens or unchaste spirits."

The Prince gestured and his guardsmen, dressed like he in dark-burgundy tabards and enameled armor, rode up to join him. He graced the other men still with the Queen with a flicker of a cold smile and rode off to find his baggage train and the cohorts of heavy horse that he had maintained for his own service. Ahmet felt a sense of unease lift from him as the Petran rode away. The King of the Southern Highlands was not well loved, nor did he care. He had given up nearly all of his army to the service of Zenobia, but he remained aloof from the discussions among the commanders and kept his own counsel. He seemed content to follow Zenobia's lead in all things.

The Queen sidestepped her horse close to Ahmet's and smiled. "Son of Egypt, will you take charge of the hospital and the baths? I can think of no better man to undertake such an important task. Find cousin Zabbai in that confusion at the gate and move the cooks, quartermasters, and doctors into the hospital. There must be a spring to bring water to such a large camp. Find it as well and see that there is water within the walls. We will be here for a time, and such comforts as can be garnered shall be."

"Yes, milady," Ahmet said, bowing a little.

The Queen smiled, her voice softening. "When you are done, come and find me, I will be in the commandery. If it pleases you, take quarters near to mine. I would like to talk to you later."

Ahmet nodded, though he felt a little dizzy from the blood rushing to his head. Zenobia turned away, taking those brilliant eyes and flawless face with her. He shook his head to clear the vision away and turned his horse. There was a great deal of work to be done.

Ahmet and a crew of Syrian stonemasons who had been enlisted in the army to satisfy the honor of their city put their backs into a lever and groaned, straining against it. The stone that they were trying to break out from the wall of the cistern trembled and then slipped aside with a grinding noise. Water, dark and cold, spurted into the round chamber.

"Up the rope! Up the rope!" Ahmet shouted as water flooded over him, knocking him to the ground. The stonemasons shouted in fear as one of the torches, knocked loose, hissed out in the water swirling around on the room's floor. Above them, in the square opening cut into the side of the rock cistern, the other men threw down ropes to the men at the bottom of the well. Ahmet struggled in the water, forcing himself to his feet. The stone that had sealed the old pipe from the aqueduct gave a peculiar groaning sound and then suddenly broke free in the rush of water. The Egyptian splashed aside, his heart thudding with fear, as the heavy block of basalt crashed into the thigh-deep water where they had been standing. Water was rising quickly. He looked up.

The stonemasons had scampered up the ropes like a band of monkeys and were crawling out through the hole. The men outside were dragging them through the opening as quickly as they could manage. Ahmet snared one of the ropes and wedged his foot into a crack between the stones that made the wall. Water tugged at him as the cistern filled, but he too scrambled up the wall and many rough, callused hands were waiting to hoist him through the opening.