Shadow of Ararat

Baraz nodded to one of his signalmen, and the man raised a black ba

A dispatch rider rode up, his helmet askew. “Lord Baraz!” The rider was one of Khadames’ youngsters. “Lord Khadames requests that he be allowed to charge the enemy wing-his casualties are mounting from arrow fire.”

Baraz laughed grimly and shook his head. “No, lad, tell Khadames that if he so much as budges, I’ll have him beheaded and his whole family sold as slaves in the great market at Ctesiphon. He holds for my order, and no other!”

The youngster put spur to his horse and pelted off back to the right. Baraz smiled, noticing the queasy looks on the courtiers around him.

“Worry not, friends!” he called out in his battlefield voice, so that all could hear. “Soon we’ll see action aplenty! Are your swords loose? Are your bows strung and taut?” Then he laughed, for fear was begi

The Persian infantry was only fifty yards from the Romans and the center of the field was about to become a charnel house. Baraz gestured to his drum men, and they beat out a long rolling tattoo. The ba

Baraz sat astride his white horse, drumming his fingers on th amp;- high saddle horn. Dispatch riders crowded around him, relaying information to his lieutenants. He ordered the skirmishers, now that they had fallen back through the lanes between his blocks of infantry, to gather and swing to the left end of his line, where a regiment of swordsmen and unarmored spearmen were screening the Great Prince Shahin and his household cavalry from the advance of the Nabatean infantry. Dust rose in a great cloud in the center of the field where the spearmen and swordsmen were now at close quarters. The Boar summoned one of the dispatch riders.

“Lad, find the Lord Rhazates in that cauldron in front of us and tell him to hold his own, neither to advance nor retreat. Just retain the attention of the enemy.”

The sky growled like thunder, and Baraz jerked around, staring up into the bright blue sky. There was nothing there, but now an uneasy feeling prickled at his back and he turned his horse, staring across the “shallow stream at the covered black wagon sitting by the side of the road. A troop of Uze horse was sitting around it on the ground, seemingly oblivious. To Baraz’s eye, it seemed that the air around the wagon shimmered with an unhealthy color.

On the Palmyrene left wing, where Mohammad and his horse archers had been dashing toward the Persians, firing a black cloud of arrows and then swerving away in fine style, the Palmyrene knights had ridden up at last and had dispersed into a line nine ranks deep. Mohammad rose up in his stirrups and waved the green ba

Still the Persians held their ranks and did not charge. Mohammad shook his head at their bravery and discipline- no Arab contingent would have been able to stand the slaughter. He galloped back up the low hill, his ba

“Regroup! Regroup!” Mohammad shouted, his voice carrying across the field. The Tanukh, scattered across the northern end of the plain, began riding back to him, gathering around the green and white ba

“Lord Zabda,” Mohammad called across the ranks of armored horsemen. “The Persians are still stu

Zabda turned his horse and trotted through the ranks of his men. He was clad in a, long chain-mail shirt under a breastplate of metal strips tied together with leather lacings. A heavy helmet, cone-shaped like the Persian spangenhelm, covered his head, save for a narrow slit for his eyes. A pe

“We are outnumbered by two to one, Quraysh! I’ll not send my men to their deaths for nothing. Look, the Queen has dispatched the reserve to support us.” He pointed back toward the main Palmyrene positions. Mohammad looked over the man’s shoulder. Sure enough, the mercenary cavalry was trotting at an easy pace across the field to join them. The center of the battle had devolved into a massive cloud of dust, momentarily broken by bands of men with swords and spears rushing to and fro. Mohammad could not see Zenobia’s ba

‘They’ll be here too late for the initial charge,“ he snapped at the older man. ”My Tanukh will charge with you, our numbers will be greater then!“

Zabda laughed, a hollow sound coming from within the metal helmet. “Your desert bandits? There’s no way they can stand against the Iron Hats! No, we will wait for reinforcements.”

Mohammad cursed luridly and spurred his horse away. As he rode back down the hill, he shouted at his ba

Zabda called out from behind him, but Mohammad did not hear him.

Baraz finally discarded the ornamental hat and tore the silk tabard and cloak off of his shoulders. The rich green material fluttered to the ground and was quickly churned to nothing by the hooves of the horses. The Roman infantry charge had slammed the Persians back to their original positions, and now the melee was begi

“Dispatch rider!” One of the youngsters swerved to join him. “To Khadames on the right, now he must attack! Flags! Signal an advance on the right.”

The general rode up to a band of archers sitting on the ground, well behind the clangor of the melee. Their captain leapt to his feet, seeing the ba