Shadow of Ararat

“Ave Caesar! Ave! Roma Victrix!”

Galen smiled, his blood afire with the prospect of battle. The roar of eager men filled his ears.

“Ahriman’s three-pronged lingam!” Baraz was beside himself in fear and rage.

The front ranks of the mass of spearmen and swordsmen at the center of the rough line he and his officers had barely managed to form had suddenly broken into a run toward the Roman lines. The rest were wavering, some pushing forward, still pressed by men behind them, others trying to move back. Snarling, he glanced up and down the rest of the line. The blocks of horsemen on the right and left wings were still sorting themselves out by ba

“Dispatch!” One of the lads spurred up to, ride along side him.

“To Salabalgus and Doronas on the right; tell them to wait for the mob in front of us to lock with the Roman lines and then charge if the Khazars attempt to take them in the flank.”

His uncle and the other Eastern lord had all of his heavy cavalry-the clibanari, or oven men, so named for their body-length metal armor-under some vague sort of control. If the Khazars on the Roman right wing took the opportunity of the exposed Persian infantry to charge, his countercharge could demolish the entire Roman right.

The boy galloped away. Baraz chewed on his thumb, watching the center of his army rush headlong into waiting, steady, disaster.

The Kagan Ziebil, khan of the Khazars and overlord of the Bulgar tribes, sat easily on his horse. It had been awhile since he had been in the saddle, and he found that his body remembered better than his mind did. He rubbed his stubbly beard and peered with watery blue eyes off to the right, where the lean-faced Roman king, Galen, was advancing his men at a walk into the teeth of a vast black mob of screaming Persians. Unlike the Persians, who were rushing forward in clumps and without the slightest possibility of organization, the Romans were moving forward in step, their front rank a gleaming wall of interlocking shields.

With barely fifty paces between the two armies, the Romans came to a halt, closing up the interval between their lines. The front of the line rippled as men brought javelins to their cheek and then, at the hoarse shout of bull-voiced centurions, let fly. The air was filled with a cloud of silver-tipped darts, and the ru

He gestured to one of his ba

His own long line of men, lances pointed to the sky over the distant Persian cavalry, rippled with movement, and they moved forward at a slow walk. The Khazar light cavalry commanded by Prince Dahvos had already driven off the Huns and Sacagatani archers who had been harassing them.

At the center of the field, the Romans in the first rank drew their shortswords as one, the sound of four thousand blades scraping from scabbards cutting across the tumult of the field. The second rank let fly with their javelins as more Persians rushed over the bodies of their first wave. Then the third rank let fly. The Persian infantry slowed, tangling with men trying to run back from the edge of battle and clambering over the bodies of the dead. The Romans stood firm.

The main mass of the Persians slammed into the Roman lines with a dull crash of metal. The Roman ranks staggered back three steps and then stopped. Ziebil could hear a chorus of screams rising above the din. Thousands of iron swords flashed as the legio

Ziebil motioned again and two flags dipped and rose. The horsemen on the right-hand side of his wedge trotted forward toward the flank of the battle. As the front of the

Persian lines ground against the Romans, the men ru

Salabalgus could barely see out of the narrow eyeslit of his helmet, but he could see enough. The right flank of the infantry was melting away under the rain of Khazar arrows. His commanders were shouting at him, urging him to charge into the midst of the wheeling Khazar archers and drive them off. He ignored them, watching the hilltop where the ba

Thousands more Persian infantry poured into the center of the field. The front ranks, locked in melee with the Romans, could not bring their bows to bear, and the ranks behind could not see the enemy. The Roman legio

On his hilltop, Baraz’s quick eye caught the flex in the enemy lines and saw too that the enemy right wing had continued its slow advance, leaving it only two or three hundred yards from his own right wing and the heavy cavalry there.

“Signal Salabalgus,” he shouted at his ba

Heraclius must be there, he thought. Being unusually patient too.

He waved a dispatch rider over. He leaned close to the boy. “Message to Lord Gundarnasp on the left. Tell him to send his Lakhmids and Huns forward against the Roman horsemen. When they are distracted, he is to charge in behind the archers.”

Baraz looked back to the right. Salabalgus’ formations were aswarm with activity as they shook out in preparation to charge. The Boar smiled, long teeth flashing in the midday sun.

The Khan Ziebil saw the waving ba

At the head of the middle wedge, Ziebil at last cut loose with a long shrieking cry. Ah-la-la-la-la-la!

As they galloped forward, Ziebil’s men drew their bows, fitting shaft to string, and at a bare hundred paces-let fly. Their arrows arced up, a hungry dark cloud, and then whistled down, slashing through the ranks of the Persians. Behind the arrow storm, the horsemen continued to charge forward. Now lances rasped from their wooden sockets and were held overhand, ready to strike.