Shadow of Ararat

THE GREAT CAMP, SAMOSATA

Dust puffed from under his feet as Dwyrin settled himself a few yards from the archery butt. His skin was a deep brown under the peeling scraps that remained on his arms and neck. Six thin gashes lay on his back, still swollen a little. A constant itching ran at the back of his mind. Like Odenathus and Eric he wore a plain white cotton tunic, stitched only at the hems, and plain tan wool breeches. His hair, now pale rose-colored straw under the sun, was bound back at the base of his neck and held by a thin dark band of leather. He squinted against the wavering sky. Two weeks now had passed under the heavy sun of the alluvial plain. Of Zoe’s “five,” in truth there were only four.

War was in the wind, though no Persians had been sighted anywhere near the city or the camp. Dwyrin had not left the inner camp, but he had heard Blanco and the tribune discussing the extension of the great ditch that bounded the encampment and the raising of many new tents. The senior wizards’ faces grew longer with each heat-filled day. Yet the trainees were told nothing. Instead Blanco had drilled them in minutiae.

Before light the four rose each day, and Blanco ran them for an hour around the inner camp in endless repetition. Each had to match the centurion’s stride, no more or less.

Dwyrin’s legs were barely long enough, but he knew that Zoe and Eric struggled to make the pace. Needless, Zoe never spoke of it, and always finished in her place as file-closer behind him. Her rasping breath she kept to herself. Eric moaned theatrically after each run and would often fall to his knees at the entry to the mess tent, begging for water. Blanco ignored him while he did not shirk but was quick with a fist or hobnailed boot for any who fell behind.

Days passed in stick drill; Blanco disallowed them bladed weapons.

“Swords are not for children,” he would opine, smirking, and ignore the venomous glances of Zoe. “Better that you master the simple shepherd’s staff than the gladius.”

Regardless, Dwyrin fell into bed covejed with bruises and aching to his bones. Colonna came by seldom, but when he did, his tongue was as sharp as ever. Here in the camp, he seemed to Dwyrin larger, less etched by fear, but the Hibernian’s senses were dulled with fatigue and constant pain.

Blanco ordered them to the archery range set on the north‘ side of the inner camp, just under the ramped embankment and palisade that marked the edge of the sorcerer’s domain. Here a fifty-foot-long strip was cleared and marked at the eastern end by a mound of dirt and a stack of hay bales. Before each bale a stout wooden frame stood, banded with heavy wood. As Dwyrin had approached, he saw that the wood was deeply scored and riven. Glints of metal flashed at him from deep in the boards.

Sweat beaded his brow and he turned a few feet from the boards and faced the end of the archery throw. At the far end, Blanco raised a simple short bow, no more than a curved stave bound with gut and sinew.

“Hai!” the centurion called, and drew a raven-fletched arrow to his cheek. Dwyrin stood still by the butts, eyes unfocused. Two days now, the four had watched the flight of arrows for hours. Flicker-quick, the arrow snapped from

Blanco’s hand, hissing a foot past Dwyrin’s ear. The Hibernian expanded his sight, seeing all things with equal acuity, and felt the shining trail of presence that the arrow left behind.

Blanco drew back another shaft to his bearded cheek. Dwyrin could feel the tension in the string, the clenching muscles in the centurion’s hand. He backed off, seeing, feeling less. The centurion’s voice echoed behind his ear. Seeing everything is worse than seeing nothing, you must only see that which is important. The hand released and copper-headed death blurred into enormity. Dwyrin flicked it aside with a brush of curling cyan, hot morning air given shape and power from the swirling currents of smoldering power in the air and stones.

Odenathus clapped his hand on his shoulder at the far end of the range. Blanco drew again and loosed. The arrow blurred in the air, but Dwyrin could catch the fletching spinning as the shaft leapt toward him. Again Dwyrin flexed the rivers of power that spun between him and the arrow, driving it into the soil four feet away. He grinned, and flinched back as Blanco drew and fired four in quick succession.

The Hibernian skipped aside, cursing, as three of the four whipped through the space he had occupied. One lone shaft he had deflected into the posts of the guard tower at his right. He was sweating worse now.

“Again,” Blanco called from the shooting stand, “and Eric will stand with you.”

At night, one of the Hippocrat? bound their wounds and patched the nicks and cuts drawn during the day’s training. The tribune and Blanco, by turns, drilled them on the myriad details of the Legion. Dwyrin fell asleep each’night exhausted and worn. Around him a growing host of tens of thousands of men also fell into their cots and blankets blind with fatigue. The two Emperors were not letting idleness dull the edge of the gathering army.