The Shadow of Ararat (42 page)

With a ringing "Ha!" he spurred forward again, his blade out and ready to strike. The longsword in the scabbard on the bay horse rasped as it slithered out into Thyatis' hand. She crouched and then scuttled behind the nervous bay and into the clear space beyond the horse. The Persian turned as well, edging his horse forward with good knee work. The ravine was a tight fit for a man trying to fight on a horse, particularly with all of the brush to hand. Thyatis lashed out, cutting for the face of the horse. The Persian and the horse, moving as one, pranced aside, and she barely recovered her guard in time to fend off a ringing overhand blow.

Cursing, she skipped farther right, clearing away from the wall. Her right hand, free, clawed a long knife out of her belt scabbard.

The Persian rushed his horse forward a little while he slashed with the longsword, trying to pin her with the shoulder of the horse against the crumbling rock of the ravine wall. Steel rang loud in the enclosed space as she beat back his attack fiercely. In a half a breath, she lashed out with a boot against the horse's leg and it shied away. In the moment of opening, she darted left past the head of the horse and the long knife slashed, glittering.

The Persian kneed the horse hard, trying to spin it around to follow her, but the saddle strap, cut through, gave way and he spilled himself and then the horse onto the gravel and stones of the ravine floor. Thyatis rushed in, weaving past the kicking horse, and the tip of her sword sank into the man's throat. There was a fountain of dark red that covered his face and doublet. Thyatis staggered back, her blood afire with the rush of battle. The horse whinnied in distress and then managed to stand up. Thyatis spun, gravel spitting from under her boot.

The lead scout lay dead under the thorn tree, the arrow standing up from the side of his head like a gruesome signpost. The other scout, the one trapped behind the tree, was nowhere to be seen. The lead scout's horse was nudging him with its nose, blowing softly. Thyatis grimaced and walked up carefully by the side of the horse and took it in hand. It was confused, but she led it back to her own horse and introduced them. Flies began to buzz about the bodies of the dead.

Thyatis mounted, feeling a twinge in her left arm. Wincing, she peeled back part of her shirt—there was a gash on her upper arm, running diagonally down from the shoulder. Blood curdled from it.
How did I get that?
she wondered. With the two other horses roped in behind her, she nudged the bay to a trot up the ravine. Somewhere ahead the ravine would reach a break in the ridge, she hoped, and she could cut across the slope of the mountain. Night was coming quickly.

Running on foot, Nikos crashed through a stand of cattails at the edge of a pond. The call of horns echoed off the wooded hills to his left, up toward the slope of the mountain, and again to the rear. He splashed quickly along the edge of the pond, stirring up a roil of muddy water and torn seagrass. The sky was growing dark and the land under the mountain was falling into shadow. The horns came again, much closer, though farther up the slope. Nikos plunged into the deeper water of the pool and began to half wade, half swim toward the far bank.

Horses snorted close behind him and he slid soundlessly down into the water. The western sky was a boil of hot orange, violet, and deep blue-purple. Clouds had gathered in the late day over Tendürük and now the sun had plunged into them, filling the vault of heaven with all the blood of its passing. The pond lay in twilight shadow now, deep gray and muffled blue-black. Nikos lay back in the water, only eyes showing, and slowly moved backward toward the far bank. The shore he had abandoned he watched carefully. Two men, perhaps more, were moving there on horses. He could make out bare glints of their movement as they searched the shoreline.

Indistinct voices carried over the water to him; there were at least three men there now. A horn sounded in the woods behind them, clear and ringing in the twilight. Others answered it from the woods above and more men began to gather on the shore. Nikos cursed all the gods and the fates that had brought him to this point—particularly the one who had snatched the horse and all of his equipment from him two miles back along the trail. His hands found the hard-packed mud of the bank.

Someone struck a flint and a spark of light guttered among the men gathering under the eaves of the trees. A lantern was lit and helms and bright mail glinted in the warm light. Thirty or forty men had come out of the forest now, faces lean and marked with narrow beards and mustaches. Some wore red tunics over their armor; others wore tall
spangenhelms
. A voice of command boomed among them and the crowd shifted, focusing on someone whom Nikos could not see over the confusion of men and horses. He slid beneath the jutting root of an ancient and gnarled tree.

The men on the far shore listened while the booming voice rose and fell, then they began to break up into smaller bands. Some mounted and rode off into the woods, others quartered the area around the shore, gathering firewood and unpacking baggage from the horses. A single figure remained standing by the pond, staring across it into darkness. In the light of torches and lanterns, Nikos could see that the man was exceptionally broad of shoulder and possessed of a mighty beard. The Illyrian crawled carefully up the bank, keeping the old tree between him and the watching man, then he jogged away into the darkness.

Breath hissed from clenched teeth as Thyatis dragged a length of tattered cloth around her wounded arm. The bleeding had grown worse as she had pushed herself and the three horses to make distance across the flank of Ararat. Always, she had heard the horns of the Persians away and below her, but sometimes they grew nearer. Following the game trails across the mountainside was hard going. Rocky canyons cut the slope, forcing her into long detours. She had made only a few miles since she had left the ravine where she had killed the two men. She had come down a dizzying slope of loose shale and talus to reach the bottom of a broad canyon. For a little while she had made good time, but then the canyon had dropped away in a broad glassy lip of stone that spilled a trickle of water over a sixty-foot drop.

Full darkness had caught up with her, and beyond a sliver of moon, there was little light in the canyon. Attempting to find a way down around the cliffs was a useless effort at night, so she had denned up in an overhang upstream from the waterfall. A tiny fire guttered at her feet and the faces of the horses loomed at her out of the darkness. The horses had her water and the last of the grain from the saddlebags. Her fire was only twigs backed up against a small boulder. There was a bit of cast-up wood at the edge of the overhang as well.

She wrapped the length of cloth around her upper arm again and tied it off with one hand and her teeth. When she could see clearly again, it was a ragged edge of the night, stars peeking in around the overhang of the rock shelter. The fire was still flickering and the scant light picked out figures carved into the rock above her head—lions, gazelles, and a fat figure of a woman with a beehive. They glittered and sparkled in the darkness. Thyatis closed her eyes, all unaware that sleep had stolen up upon her.

Nikos jogged on, his legs still moving even though they seemed to drag through mud with each stride. His clothes, soaked by the trip through the pond, were dry again and rasped against his skin. The rocky plain, cut with odd mounds and sculpted towers of black stone, stretched ahead of him. His foot hit a rock and nearly turned his ankle. He stopped. Running on unknown ground under almost no moon was unwise. Stopping was a mistake, though, for his arms were leaden and he slumped against the nearest outcropping. The stone, brittle and spongelike with tiny razor edges and a crumbling nature, cut at his hand though it seemed to take a very long time for the pain to reach his consciousness. He staggered back, wiping the blood off on his leggings.

He walked on, picking his way through the eroded lava field with mindless care. Exhaustion crept up upon him, and when he started awake, he was lying, curled up, between two pitted stones in a tiny patch of sand. The boat of the moon had crossed most of the sky. He levered himself up and continued on.

A mile past the lavafield, he reached a shallow
wadi
, dry as a bone. He slid down the side of it, but found, once he had trudged across the sandy bottom, that he was too tired to climb up the farther bank. He began walking up the bottom of the
wadi
. The river of milk hung over his head, and in the starlight, the mountain loomed enormous ahead of him, gleaming pale white under the moon.

The ringing of clear bells woke Thyatis. Her eyes opened and she saw a roof of burnished dark cedarwood above her. Sunlight, filtered dim by golden curtains, fell at the edges of the platform that she rested on. A great murmur of people carried on the air to her. She felt strange; her hands and feet would not move to her will. The roof rocked back and forth, and she realized that she was on something that was rolling forward on an uneven road. Incense traced trails in the air and slowly drifted away behind her. A heavy cloth of soft silk lay over her, and a diadem of silver leaves was upon her brow.

Her eyes, at least, she could move, and from their corners she could make out pillars of gold placed around the platform that held her bed. The capitals of the pillars were worked into a deep flourish of leaves and carefully cut flowers. Rich paints anointed the carving with deep greens and yellow highlights. She could smell flowers too, and guessed that the bed of the great platform that she lay upon was deep with them. The bells rang again, tinkling silver, as the wagon stopped. The sound of the crowd rose, and there was the basso shouting of men.

Incense pooled in the still air under the roof beams. Voices rose and fell, though the sound of chanting halted—all-pervasive and unnoticeable until, as now, it was gone. The golden curtains to the left side of the bier parted, carefully brushed aside by a gloved hand. Thyatis struggled to rise, but her limbs, heavy, refused to move. The face of a man rose into view, looking down upon her with sad eyes. He was elderly, with short graying hair and an intelligent brow. He wore a rich burgundy cloak, bound with clasps of silver and gold over a linen shirt of deep purple. His beard was neat and short, shot through with veins of white hair. Gently the man placed a hand on Thyatis' forehead and bowed his own.

Tears fell from his eyes, sparkling in the dusty sunlight. The old man's shoulders shook slightly, and Thyatis blinked the salty water away, but he was trapped in his own grief and did not see the slight movement. When at last he looked up, he had composed himself. He leaned close, close enough for Thyatis to catch the smell of clean fabric and a muskiness of coriander and thyme. His lips brushed her forehead and then he stood fully. The shadow of the roof fell across his face. He was the king once more.

"Good-bye, brother," he said, his strong voice subdued. "I will take you to your true home and build you a monument to last a thousand years." Then he turned and went out through the golden curtains. The voices raised, soldiers chanting a name, as he emerged into the sunlight. Thyatis strained to catch it, but now the world was receding into a dark funnel of rushing lights. The clamor of the people faded and sleep overcame her again.

The sound of a boot crunching on rock and gravel filtered into Nikos' dreaming sleep. He lay still and opened an eye a bare fraction. A pair of heavy leather riding boots was within his field of view, standing on light sand and scattered rocks, and another pair beyond them. The snort of horses broke the silence. He continued to breathe evenly, though he was sure that the time for subterfuge was long past. Something sharp pricked his ear, and he twitched.

"You know," came a voice in Persian, in a slow burr, "this fellow might be awake already."

Two more sharp pinpricks came to rest between his shoulders. Nikos opened one eye and moved his head slightly. Three Persian cavalrymen were arrayed around him. The closest, kneeling, had a long dagger in his hand and its point rested lightly against the side of his head. The man, almost clean-shaven his beard was so closely cut, smiled down at him and traced the end of the knife across his cheek to rest against the skin of his throat. Nikos swallowed to moisten his tongue.

"I'll not run," he said. "Let me rise and you can take my weapons."

"A reasonable fellow," one of the other Persians commented. The two spears and the knife withdrew enough for him to stand, though the alertness of their wielders did not waver. Nikos climbed to his feet, the rush of adrenaline in his blood cutting through the muzziness of sleep broken too early. The cluster of brush that he had crawled into when the sun had begun to lighten the eastern sky seemed much smaller and sparser than it had in the night. Another Persian was on horseback, a distance from the litter of brush, a bow and notched arrow in his hands. Nikos turned slowly around, catching sight of the great bulk of the mountain to the northwest and another two horsemen. He clasped his hands on the top of his head. There was nothing to be done now.

The man with the dagger deftly removed the Illyrian's shortsword, cooking knife, and the dagger he wore on his left leg. Quick fingers checked the folds of his shirt and his pants. Satisfied, the Persian handed the weapons off to one of his juniors and drew out a length of rope.

"Turn," the sergeant said. "Hands behind your back."

Nikos did as he was told. The sun was bright, cutting through banks of clouds. It might rain in the foothills of the mountains. He stared at the snowcap of Ararat.

Luck of the gods with you, girl,
he thought.

After binding his hands, the Persians helped him onto the back of one of their remounts and then the whole band galloped away to the south, leaving a cloud of dry white dust to mark their passing. The tight cords bit into Nikos' wrists. His hands were already becoming numb.

There was a weight on her chest when Thyatis woke. She shifted a little, off a rock lodged under her shoulder blade. A hiss stilled her, and then she felt muscular coils shifting between her breasts. She lay back, completely still, and slowly opened her eyes. A triangular head with beady black eyes stared back at her. A heavy, scaled body lay coiled across her chest and trailed down onto her belly. Thyatis barely breathed, testing her hands and feet. She could move them again. The head of the asp danced from side to side, its pale pink tongue tasting the air. It drew its tail in with a slithering rasp. It was under her tunic, close to her warm skin. She could feel the coolness along her cheek where its own head had lain against her neck.