The Dark Lord

There was a grunt from the darkness, but the centurion did not look up from his work.

'If you follow his orders,' Shirin said, seeing the soldiers were very young and brave, but afraid to admit they had not faced an enemy as fearsome as the Persians. 'You will do well, and fight honorably.'

'Have you seen the Persians in battle?' Marcus failed to keep both curiosity and disbelief from his voice.

'I have,' Shirin said, then stopped, wondering if anything she might say to these boys would matter. Soon they would fight and live, or die, by their own merits on some Egyptian field. 'When I was little, before I became a... priestess, I lived near the Persian frontier. More than once, I saw the Persians ride against... my people. They make a great show on the march, bright banners and flags and great horns blowing, and they are all a-horse, great chargers with round chests. Their spears are keen, I remember, and wave like a forest of shining reeds.'

'But Rome has always beaten them,' Marcus interjected, his voice concerned. 'Off their horses they're no match for us, not on broken ground!'

'I hope so,' Shirin said. 'The Huntress would be pleased to see you live. When I am home again, I will sacrifice for you, and your safety.'

That pleased the young Romans, who raised their cups in salute. Shirin felt a little odd, as if she'd pulled a mask across her face and suddenly spoken with someone else's voice. Marcus lowered his cup, his face suddenly grim. 'We shouldn't be too quick to discount them, though.'

'Why?' called some of the other men. Shirin noticed Florus raise his big square head to watch the younger man with interest.

'They have arts we lack,' Marcus said, looking around at his fellows, mouth thinned to a sharp line. 'They did not throw down the walls of Constantinople by strength of mortal arms! No, their foul priests summoned up some fiend—'

'Their priests are not foul!' Shirin was surprised by the vehemence in her voice. 'The mobeds and mobehedan are pious men, who serve a god of light, not darkness. Their god may be different from yours, but he too rules justly in heaven. I fear—' She stopped, throat choked closed by old anger. Her face seemed to shutter, as if a door closed on a lighted room. In dark memory, she looked upon almost-forgotten pain and turned the scenes and voices over in her thought like glittering bits of glass. With an effort, she returned her attention to the present, and the stunned, questioning faces of the young soldiers.

'I am little older than you are,' she said, voice falling into a cadence she'd first heard in her father's voice, around the campfires of the people. 'But I have heard a tale out of Persia, one you have not, I think. Your enemies are only men and women, like yourselves, and they are prey to many failings. They are prey to evil, and not the simple evil of lies or theft, but the kind of evil that makes the gods turn their faces from men.'

Shirin stopped, looking up at the sliver of the moon and the thick wash of stars carpeting the heavens. It was very dark between the glittering lights. The Romans were silent, the pale glow of the candle lantern shining in their eyes, Florus setting down his tools and oily cloth as they watched her, as she once watched her father sitting under a Khazar sky, telling the old stories of the people.

'Many years ago, before you were born, the king of kings—the shahanshah—of the Persians was growing old. He endured a troubled reign, much plagued by barbarians called the T'u-chueh who raided and burned and caused much grief along the northern frontier. At last the old king rode out against them with a great army, and in the way of such things, fell into a trap, and was slain. He left two sons, but they were still very young, and neither was yet a man. The greatest of the old king's generals was a stiff sort of fellow named Bahram, and his enemies called him choban, which means 'made of wood', when they thought he could not hear them, and behind his back.

'Bahram seized the throne of Persia and claimed he ruled in the name of the eldest of the two boys, whose name was Khusro—in Roman lands, you call him 'Chrosoes.' But no one saw the young prince, or heard him speak, for the Wooden King sent him away, to live in exile in a fortress, far from the eyes of the court and the great nobles. The younger son vanished completely and everyone was sure he had been murdered. Bahram was not a good king, but he was greatly feared, though in all matters the realm grew weak and filled with petty evil.

'Young Khusro was imprisoned in a castle set high on a mountain, near the northern frontier, and in the custody of an old and very loyal diquan—you would call him a knight. The old knight was loyal to a fault and he'd sworn an oath to the Wooden King and, by all the gods, he intended to keep his word. In the castle, however, lived a strapping, powerful young man—his grandson—and this boy would one day be known as Shahr-Baraz.'

A low whistle went up from the legionaries. They did not set any stock by the heroes or kings of other lands, not and be Romans, but this was a name they knew and respected, for the Royal Boar was legendary even in Rome, where few barbarians gained such renown. No enemy had ever won so many victories against the Empire.

'Yes, you know him for his famous beard. The Boar was still young then, and green as spring grass, but he was restless in his grandfather's castle and yearned to see what lay beyond the barren fields and the desolate hills. Too, there was this other young man, also trapped, also eager to make his way in the wide world. This was prince Khusro, the son of the dead king, a prisoner in the old keep. They became fast friends and practiced constantly in the fighting yard, growing stronger and faster with each day. Never have there been two friends like these—each strove to best the other in all things—and each swore mighty and secret oaths they would escape their dull prison and restore Khusro to his rightful throne.

'Winter approached, one bleak year, and the old diquan fell ill and died. A messenger was sent to Ctesiphon to bring this news to the Wooden King. The Boar, however, did not wait for the royal courier to return. He had, as yet, sworn no oath to the king of kings on his distant throne. Instead, with a boldness that has only grown with age, he bent his knee and neck to his friend, Prince Khusro and called him king of kings and made himself the prince's sworn man. Now Khusro set himself against his regent and Shahr-Baraz was a rebel lord.

'Together they fled from the drafty old fort and made their way south and west by secret ways, into the great central plateau of Persia, where all her true riches lie—for there among wide plains and grazing fields are the domains of the diquans and their knights and the very strength of Persia. Khusro intended to find support amongst old friends of his father and raise an army to reclaim his throne. But the prince, though brave, was still young and Bahram was old and sly with treachery. Some of the great nobles rose up for the young king, but more joined the armies of the Wooden King and the prince's revolt was violently suppressed.

'Khusro escaped, and lived, only because there was no man upon that field, or on any other, who could match Shahr-Baraz with lance or sword or spear. The Boar hewed his way from the melee, slaughtering hundreds, and the two rebels escaped into the mountains. This time, the Wooden King found a body resembling the prince and carried the dead boy back to Ctesiphon in a great funeral procession. That boy was buried, as if Prince Khusro had died, and Bahram Choban made himself truly king of kings. Everyone wept, thinking the young prince had fallen.

'Secretly Bahram's men searched everywhere, quartering the mountains and the hills, urgent to find the Boar and the prince. By luck and skill, they failed, and the Boar took the prince north, beyond the mountains of Persia and into the great grasslands surrounding the Salt Sea, where terrible savages roam and the winter is nine months long.'

Shirin paused, thirsty, and drank from her cup. When she looked up, she saw more men had come out of the darkness and squatted or stood around the little circle of light from the candle lantern. No one spoke while she drank again and settled herself more comfortably on the deck.

'They would have died in that cruel winter, both the prince and the Boar, if they had not been found by a hunting party of the Khazar people, who rule those lands. Now, know this—the Persians and the Khazars are old enemies, who long fought over the land called Albania, and there was long enmity between them. Yet, know this as well; there have never been two braver men than Shahr-Baraz and Khusro. The two were taken to the camps of the Khazar kagan and made his guests and they spent a long winter there, in peak-roofed Itil, on the banks of the black-watered Rha. Khusro was without fear and he put his case to the kagan and asked him for help to