Thomas Harlan - The shadow of Ararat

– |Galen swayed in his saddle as the horse cantered along the length of the Roman lines. He had deployed his legionnaires in a double-depth frontage. The front line, five ranks deep, was comprised of the veteran Third Augusta at the center, with the Second Triana on one side and the Sixth Gemina on the other. Behind them was an interval twenty paces deep and then another line of five ranks. These were the Second Audiatrix on the west, the Imperial Bodyguard in the center, and the Third Gallica on the east. His banner men kept close to the Emperor, riding no more than an arm's length away. Men wearing conical felt caps ran off the field between the armies and down the avenues cleared between each Legion.

Galen completed his circuit and surveyed the field. The Persian army had filled the far side of the plain with a solid mass of men and was beginning to move forward. He could not tell if it was an ordered advance or the simple pressure of more reinforcements entering the field. He saw that the Armenian skirmishers and the thaumaturges he had sent forward had finished retiring behind the stolid lines of legionnaires.

He looked to the west and saw that two huge wedges of Eastern knights had fanned out at the end of his line. The sun sparkled from twenty thousand lances, blinding the eye. Red Imperial banners fluttered at the center of the mass of men and horses. To the east, the Khazars had swung out in a long curved line, stretching from his anchoring cohorts to the tree line at the edge of the field. They were in constant movement, bands of horsemen galloping here and there in apparent confusion. Within the swirling screen of horse archers, Galen picked out Ziebil and his heavily armored lancers, a tight knot of fifteen thousand men.

Trumpets blared in the Roman ranks, and bucinas shrilled. The Legions advanced at walk, their great rectangular shields angled in front of them, each man carrying a javelin at the ready in his hand. The Western Emperor rode through the ranks, angling for the block of red cloaks that marked his bodyguard and the hulking shapes of the Varangians. As he passed, the men raised a cheer and he smiled and picked up the pace, his right arm thrust out in salute. Eight thousand voices rose up around him, a great booming shout:

"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 banner and clan. The unexpected advance of the infantry in the middle was unsupported. Hunnic horse archers scattered out of the way as sixty thousand men stormed forward, heedless of the slowly advancing lines of Romans to their front. Baraz felt sick. He wondered if the untrained peasants in front of him even knew what they were doing.

"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.

– |Khagan 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 running Persians suddenly staggered as the rain of iron slashed at them. Ziebil smiled, seeing the leading edge of the Persian line disintegrate into a red welter of dying men.

He gestured to one of his banner men, who dipped the long black dragon banner once, then twice.

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 legionnaires waded into the press of spearmen who had surged against them. The Khagan smiled, thinking of the bloody brawl at close quarters that unfolded along the long lines of Romans. At arm's reach, the short stabbing swords of the Romans would have no lack of targets for their thirst. More Persians swarmed into the fray, heedless of their fellows dying in droves in front of them.

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 running up behind began to spill around the edges of the Roman formation. The Khazars galloped in, rising up in their stirrups, bows at the ready. Two quivers were slung on the side of each saddle, packed to bursting with triangle-headed arrows. The lead Khazars, their horses thundering across the field, drew and let fly into the flank of the Persian formations. The air clouded with black arrows. Men began falling, pierced by the long shafts.

– |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 banner of the King of Kings fluttered in the air. The elderly man had fought beside Baraz for as long as the boy had been able to lift a sword. His nephew had excellent instincts for battle. Salabalgus was in no hurry to die today. He waited.

– |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 legionnaires continued to slaughter them methodically, but now they were getting weary and the center of the Roman line began to bend inward.