The Shadow of Ararat (80 page)

Dahvos smiled back. "Ha! By the time that we reach Ctesiphon, you will have torn down the Empire of Sassan and made yourself a Queen on Chrosoes' throne! Take care of my brother. I have only four left now and would begrudge another to the Crow Goddess."

Thyatis shook her head as she climbed down from the boulder and swung up onto her own horse. "Jusuf is a fool to come with us. The Emperor is fond of brilliant stratagems that either fail utterly or are spectacular successes. He should be with you, watching your back and carrying your banner in battle."

Dahvos shook his head, all light gone out of his face. "He is too devoted to you, my lady. Be careful of him. He is often moody and given to reckless action. I think... well. It is not my place to say. Good hunting and a clear sky!"

Thyatis stared after the Bulgar as he cantered away down the slope, deftly weaving his horse through the great mossy boulders and massive trees. She missed him and his irrepressible humor already.

"Enough!" she said to herself, and turned the horse to walk uphill to her men. Spring would come soon enough.

Nikos rose as she reached the men. The others remained sitting, weapons or clothes or tack in their hands. Thyatis turned her horse, looking down at the lot of them. Two of Bagratuni's sons had shown up, bristling with knives, axes, and spears, the day before. Efforts to run them off had failed, and now they were sitting together near the horses. Jusuf had brought four of his men, survivors of Tauris and the battle at the gate. Anagathios made ten.

"Mount up, lads. We've a long journey to make before the snow comes."

Jusuf and Nikos both nodded sharply and turned to deal with the men. Each noticed the other and stopped, staring. Thyatis almost laughed—they were bristling at each other like barnyard dogs! Neither spoke, glaring at the other. "Jusuf," Thyatis said in a calm voice, "I am used to Nikos being my second. When I am not here, he leads." The Bulgar met her eyes with barely repressed anger. For a moment she thought that Jusuf would test her will, but then he nodded and turned away. Nikos looked at her, his brown eyes filled with worry. Dissention among such a small group was a quick ride to disaster. She shook her head, signing
I'll talk to him later
. Nikos shrugged and turned back to the men. "Check your gear, check your horses, check your water! We ride out in ten grains!"

The wagon rattled over the bricks that paved the bridge, and Dwyrin bounced up and down, clutching at the planks of the bench seat to keep from being thrown off. Squeezed in next to him, Zoë grinned a little, though her dark eyes were somber. Dwyrin matched her smile with one of his own, wedging his arm in behind her to get a good grip on the backboard. Odenathus was crammed into the back of the wagon with bales of hide tents and other supplies. He did not bother to disguise his morose expression. His battle partner was gone, swallowed up by the dark river and the flames at the gate. Now he seemed the outsider.

"Hey-yah!" Colonna snapped the reins, and the four mules yoked to the wagon snorted and flicked their tails from side to side. The speed of the clapboard wagon picked but he could see that it made no difference to her. The Roman army wound through the streets of Tauris. The
ouragos
was heavily bundled up, with two shirts and a heavy cloak wrapped around him. Zoë huddled in an equally thick bundle of clothing and a fur-lined robe. Dwyrin was still in his linen shirt, with dirty blue leggings.

At last,
he thought,
some reasonable weather!

His breath puffed a little, white in the chill air. Despite the numbness that he felt for Eric, he smiled broadly and grinned at the other two passengers. Zoë was not amused and turned her face away. His fell—the day was beautiful but he could see that it made no difference to her.

The Roman army wound through the streets of Tauris like a steel snake. The buildings echoed to the stamp of thousands of booted feet, all marching north. Ahead of the wagon, Dwyrin could see the helmeted heads of a troop of infantry, their spears dancing over their shoulders. The Westerners were singing, a rude song about the bathhouse maiden. A few of the townspeople watched from the shelter of the deep doorways they favored in this land. The women were veiled and the men watched with closed faces. Dwyrin frowned at the ill-concealed hostility.

"They are not angry," Zoë said in his ear, her breath warm on his cheek. "They are patient, waiting for us to be gone. Then the city will begin to come alive. But they have as little love for Rome as they did for Persia."

"Why?" he said, turning to face her. She drew back a little. "These people, like my own, have been a prize for the great Empires for centuries. First they are a Persian province, then a Roman, then a Persian again. Never ruled by their own King. Who is free of Rome? No one."

Dwyrin demurred, saying "My people are free, under their own Kings. Romans come to trade and barter, true, but not to conquer."

Zoë frowned at him, then lifted her fine nose in the air.

"That is because you are barbarians." Then she sniffed. "Who would want to rule you?"

Maxian closed the door carefully, making only a slight rasping sound. In the great bed, Krista continued to sleep soundly, her arm curled around a heavy pillow, her dark hair tousled around her head. The low light of an oil lamp lit the hallway for him as he padded to the window at the end of the floor. Around him, the house was deep in slumber. Even the homunculus, which often sat up in its room, unsleeping, its pale-yellow eyes staring at the wall, was abed. The Prince pushed the window open, feeling a fresh breeze on his face, cold and smelling of the sea.

One hand on the frame, he stepped up into the window itself. The moon rode low over the roofs of the city, illuminating a hundred towers, domes, and buildings with silver light. Taking a deep breath, Maxian felt a quiet peace steal over him. Beneath his feet, the garden court at the center of the house was completely dark, even the light in the kitchen window having died. Nimbly he swung out and caught hold of one of the lead drainpipes that carried water from the roof to the flower beds below. Centering his thought, he scrambled up the wall, feeling his toes dig into the crevices between the stones.

Alais was waiting, smiling. The Prince walked gingerly along the edge of the canted roof, one foot carefully placed in front of the other. The Walach woman bowed to him and held out a pale-white arm. He took her hand in his, feeling the long nails bite into his wrist. Alais was clad in a tight shirt of silk dyed with squid ink and leggings of soft cotton. Her long hair was tied back behind her head, a long, lashing tail that reached the small of her back.

"My lord," she purred. "Are you ready to learn the night?"

"Yes," he said, his pulse quickening. She bowed again and turned, running lightly along the bricks of the cornice. He swallowed and shrugged his cloak off of his shoulders. Exhaling, he followed, the rooftop and the buildings fading into a blur as they flashed past. At the end of the house, Alais sprang forward off the ledge, her hair flying out behind her as she vaulted over the dark canyon of the alleyway that separated the house from the next building.

Maxian, too, leapt out into darkness, hitting the end of the ledge at a flat-out run. Wind rushed past, and then there was a sharp thudding under his feet as he landed on the warehouse roof. A flicker of liquid light flared away from his boots and his knees flexed with the impact. His blood seemed afire with delight. The blond woman ran on ahead, her laughter floating back to him in the wind of her passage. The Prince picked himself up and sprinted after her. At the far edge of the warehouse roof she sprang up into the air. Maxian's breath hissed between clenched teeth, seeing her vault up onto the side of the next building.

"O lucky cat," he snarled, gathering himself for his own leap.

"How long have your people been in the city?" Maxian's voice was a little raspy. His legs and arms were leaden weights from the effort of following Alais across the rooftops. He leaned back against the legs of a great bronze statue, his head in shadow. Moonlight fell across the valleys and mountains of the city that lay below them. Alais sat close by, her arms wrapped around her knees, which were drawn up to her chin. At their backs, the summit of the towers that adorned the Temple of Apollo formed the highest point in the city. Only a bronze of the god rose above them, his crown of gold gleaming even in the near-dawn darkness. Broad expanses of tiled roof and more statues ornamented the temple below. The entire city slept.

"Long?" she said dreamily. "No, I suppose not. I have only been here for seven years. The Matron, she has always been here. Even when crude men first put stone upon stone for shelter, I think she was watching with her cold eyes from the darkness. This is why she rules, she is the oldest."

Alais flexed her hands, seeing the long nails flash in the moonlight. "I am quicker, and stronger, fleet of foot. But she is the oldest and she rules here."

"Where did you come from?" Absently he reached out and ran his hand across her smooth back. She stretched under his touch, arching her back, and slid closer to him.

Under the silk, her skin was hot, warming him in the cold night air.

"I came," she said, leaning her head on hands, wrapped around his knee, "from the north. From high mountains crowned with ice and snow, from highland valleys filled with bright flowers and deep stands of great green trees. My family lived in the high places, above the abodes of men, hunting as we have always done. The air is so clear there, free of the stink of fires and so many men. It was a delicious time. I miss it."

"Why did you leave?" Maxian rubbed the skin behind her ear and she turned her head, making a low rumbling sound at the back of her throat.

"War came. The night Kings and their blood-drinkers came up the long valleys with bright spears and fire. My people fought and lost, even when the humans in the villages rallied to us. The Dragon-lord and his crimson banner could not be defeated. All of my brothers and sisters died, fighting at Súreánu fort. The humans thought it was our one chance for victory—but it was only a trap and a feast for the Dragon."

Alais looked up at him, her pupils expanded in the darkness to fill her whole eye. "My people did not have someone like you, my lord. There was no one to lead us, to command us, to understand that victory must be paid for in blood."

"Do you think," he said, his voice raw with doubt, "that it is worth it, to pay for victory in blood, to spend the lives of some so that some greater purpose might be achieved?"

She sat up, turning to face him, her hand on his thigh. "Listen to me, my lord. You are a Prince of your people, not some common man. It is the duty of a Prince, or a King, or a chieftain, to see the greater good for his whole people. The lives of individuals must be weighed against the lives of a whole people." Her voice was strong and sure. "In desperate times, some must be spent to save the tribe."

"Have I done that?" Maxian's voice was distant, his face troubled by evil memories. "Have I saved anyone? Everything that I have touched, trying to save, has died so far, and those who remain are so close to death with each day..."

"You will save them," she said, digging her claws into his leg. "You will save the world. You are strong enough, my Prince, to pay the cost."

Alais stood, her hair swinging out behind her shoulders. She took the Prince's hand in her own, pulling him up. "Come, my lord, the sun will rise soon. Time for one more race."

Dwyrin bent close over the surface of the stream, the round disk of the sun glittering up from the waters into his eyes. The water was cold, born in high mountain springs and melted snow. He was stripped to his waist, his pale freckled skin dewed with sweat. Each hand he held just above the water, drifting this way and that like the shadows of the few clouds that marred the otherwise perfect blue bowl of the sky. Around him, spreading out on either side of the stream, was the army of the Emperors. A camp was rising on either bank, the armies segregated not by race or nation but by the order of their march.

Soon, within days, the Romans would meet their allies for the first time. At the moment, however, Dwyrin shut out the sound of axes on wood, the shouting of centurions eager to see their men complete the raising of their tents, and the preparation of cleared lanes among the brush and stands of trees. He focused on the flickering shadows of fish in the stream. Old experience, from when he was only a lad, taken in hand by the great paw of his father, told him that fat-bellied fish, their flanks stippled with pink and gray and black, were waiting.

His hand dipped into the water slowly, without making even a ripple on the fast-moving surface. He ignored the chill in his feet, clammy dampness of his trousers. His hands nestled between a pair of rocks, matching the current. He waited, his breathing steady and even. A fine fat trout swam into the channel among the rocks, brushing over his hand with its supple skin of tiny scales. A grin flickered for a moment on his features, and his fingers moved gently, caressing the flanks of the fish. It shivered at his light touch, but he continued to tickle it gently.

Then Dwyrin's hand darted and the fish thrashed in his grip, but it was too late. The Hibernian laughed and strung it on a line of cord that hung from his waist, sliding an arrow of bone through its gills. It joined six of its fellows on his belt. Dwyrin turned at a sound.

On the bank, clad in a simple white gown and half cloak of pale green, a young woman was clapping her hands in delight.

"Oh, well done!" she called out, shading her eyes with one pale white hand. Dwyrin flushed and, remembering his manners, bowed. The woman bowed back but then sat down heavily. Dwyrin splashed through the stream, weaving his way among the rocks, to the bank. The lady, for the quality of her bracelets and hairpins marked her as one, was a little pale. The Hibernian could see, too, that she was very pregnant.