Aelia Capitolina, Roman Judea
A hundred of the Sahaba sprinted forward, leaping over broken white gravel and crumbling fieldstone walls. Half the men carried ladders, the other half great wicker screens. The air above them filled with a hissing cloud of arrows. More of the Arabs shot from cover, aiming to keep the defenders' heads down.
"Allau Akbar!" All along the mile-wide front, the fierce cry of the Sahaba roared from thousands of throats. The sun was rising, pale gold light brushing the city towers. More Sahaba poured out of shallow trenches. Hierosolyma sat atop a rocky hill. The fields along the northern wall were poor and thin.
Arrows splintered on the limestone battlements, forcing the Roman defenders to duck. The Sahaba charging across the barren swath before the wall ran all-out. If they could reach the base of the wall, there would be shelter from the stones and arrows of the defenders. At the central gate on the Damascus road, the Romans were shooting back with winch-driven crossbows and slings. A siege tower three stories high, clapped together from looted planks, rumbled down the road, pushed by four hundred Arab warriors. It swayed and jiggled, forcing the men in the top to cling for dear life. Roman arrows filled the air, pincushioning the wooden facing of the tower. Suddenly one of the Sahaba crouched down in the top coughed and there was a tinny ringing sound. He fell back among his fellows, the side of his helmet caved in by a lead bullet. A moment later they pitched him over the side of the tower, letting him fall with a crunch onto the rocky soil below.
In the shelter of the smashed triumphal arch, Odenathus sat cross-legged, his eyes barely slits. The trap that had incinerated a good quarter of the Ben-Sarid cavalry on the first day had seared the bricks, giving them an odd, glassy sheen, and knocked down part of the arch. A band of Jalal's troops squatted around him, restless eyes watching the hills and the road. Each man's spear was laid on the ground close to hand and they had arrows on the bow. The main body of the Sahaba army was fully engaged in this assault, so it paid to keep a weather eye out for sorties from the city.
The siege tower approached the wall, still shaking and rumbling on the stone surfaced road. The huge wheels made an enormous racket. The front of the tower was thick with arrows and bolts. Some of the arrows had been dipped in pitch and were still burning. Though the face of the tower was draped with wet hides, parts of it were aflame, shrouding it in a haze of dirty white smoke. Archers in the top were firing back now, trying to hit their adversaries on the gate towers. Beside and behind the tower, more Sahaba crowded forward, wicker shields held up between themselves and the wall.
There was a snapping sound off to the right of the triumphal arch. One of the scorpions the Sahaba had captured at Lejjun let fly. The huge machine rocked back hard, dust spurting from its wheels. A long throwing arm of Lebanese cedar quivered in the air, bouncing against a restraining bar. The sixty-pound stone shrieked towards the walls. Sahaban engineers scurried around the machine, preparing to crank it back with great toothed wheels and load another stone.
The stone crashed into one of the square towers rising from the main length of the wall. Fine white dust billowed back from the impact and there was a ripping sound. The dust rose up in a cloud as the tower trembled. The hurled stone bounced on the ground at the base of the wall. Then a section of the stone flaked away, tumbling down into the ditch below. The tower remained. Romans staggered to their feet on the roof.
Odenathus turned back to watch the business on the road. The fighting tower was very close, only a dozen yards from the gate, and it was burning fiercely now, though the Sahaba continued to roll it forward, their efforts punctuated with repeated cheers.
"Allau Akbar! Allau Akbar!"
The lead edge of the tower crunched into the bastion flanking the gate. Smoke gouted up, clouding the air around the wooden tower and the wall. The Sahaba in the top raised a great shout and dropped a toothed wooden plankway onto the battlement. Romans crowded there, their mail glinting in the morning sun, swords already stabbing at the Arabs crowding out of the tower.
Odenathus tore his eyes away from the distant scene. He concentrated, reaching out slowly and carefully into the hidden world.
I should have done something by now! The Palmyrene was nervous. Jalal would be getting impatient, waiting with the main body of the Sahaba a mile away on the other side of the city. The northern wall of Hierosolyma ran from northeast to southwest. It turned southwards on the eastern side at the verge of the steep-sided Valley of Kidron. Similarly, to the southwest, it turned to follow a ridge that ran under the western flank of the city. Two main gates opened in the circuit of the wall-the northern, or Damascus, gate, and the western, or Joppa, gate. The western gate stood under the brooding flank of the Roman praetorium, a stout-looking citadel built directly into the wall. This was approached by a sloping road that ran under the wall itself, dropping from the ridge down into the Hinom Valley.
During the night, while the main body of the Sahaba made noise in the north, Jalal and two thousand of his best men had crept into the western valley to hide among the olive and lemon groves. Partially shielded by the ramp of the road, they were waiting for Roman attention to be focused in the north. In particular, the Roman wizards had to show themselves. Jalal intended to have his men scramble up a forty-foot stretch of rubble to reach the ramp, then cross thirty feet of open marble-surfaced road to the gate. It was an approach completely devoid of cover. Once there, they would have to storm the gate without the support of their one wizard, who was crouching on the other side of the city, waiting to engage the attention of their enemy.
The fighting on the wall by the siege tower grew sharper, with more Sahaba climbing out of the burning structure. The fighters had seized part of the wall. Ladders were going up all along the battlements, heaved up by eager hands, some men climbing the rickety rungs even before the ladders had touched down. Most of the men climbing the wall wore the clan signs of the Ben-Sarid twisted into their armor or kaffiyeh. Odenathus closed his eyes.
The unseen world was furious with activity. Thousands of men running, fighting, dying, putting forth all their will to survive clouded it with dizzying waves of sparks and half-seen flames. Even the flow of power in the ground rippled and contorted, influenced by those struggling above. It made any kind of work very difficult. This complication usually limited sorcery in battle to defense or subtle effect.
Odenathus concentrated, focusing his will, and fixed his thought on the siege tower. He had spent the night placing simple patterns of defense on the wood. He had also etched a watching eye, squeezing his own tears into the cut wood. Now, with his intent upon it, that mirrored eye opened in the hidden world and he was there, atop the tower, wreathed in flame and smoke and shouting men.
The top of the wall was thick with men, pushing and shoving, shields locked, hewing at one another with axes and swords. Some of the Sahaba wielded spiked maces. A horrendous banging sound filled the air, mixed with the screams of the wounded. Before the heedless frenzy of the Ben-Sarid, the Romans fell back, yielding a thirty-foot section of rampart. Odenathus scanned the wall, looking for the telltale traces of a hidden pattern or the enemy himself.
There! On the nearest tower, a hundred feet away, a mage-ward swirled and reflected. In the shelter of the arch Odenathus made a motion with his hand, tracing the pattern of a shield mnemonic. His shadow counterpart on top of the siege tower duplicated the action. The glittering blue orb of the Shield of Athena sprang up around the fighting platform. Odenathus could feel the hidden world flex and de-form as the power on the wall tower became aware of him.
Time compressed, seeming to drag slowly, and Odenathus reached deep into the earth. There were hidden springs and rivers beneath the barren land, each a glowing blue current of power. He felt it rise, strengthening his shield, but it was slow work. The dim figure on the wall tower moved and the hidden world was filled with a violent reddish light.
Odenathus blinked, his eyes streaming with tears, and he fell backwards.
The siege tower blew apart in a shocking blast of light and fire. Burning men were thrown skyward, wreathed in blue-white fire and trailing smoke. The top of the wall was ripped by the blast, knocking men down. Shattered timbers torn from the superstructure of the tower scythed into the tightly packed ranks of the Sahaba. Men fell, pierced by rapierlike splinters. Others leapt screaming into the plaza behind the wall, their armor red-hot, cloaks smoldering and covered with tiny flames. All around the base of the tower, the Arabs surging forward to attack the wall lay in windrows, thrown down by the shock of the blast. Even the Romans were stunned.
The tower, stripped down to a skeleton of furiously burning logs, fell apart, pelting the men on the ground with red-hot embers and lengths of flaming wood. In the shelter of the archway, Odenathus staggered up, his right hand twisting in the air as he dragged at the power he had gathered around himself. A flickering electric-blue sphere leapt across the space between him and his enemy. There was a burst of light and a crazy display of reflections as the sphere smashed into the Roman shield. The facets darkened and flexed, then sprang back, burning even brighter.
The Palmyrene cursed, wiping his palms on his tunic. Smoke billowed up out of the ruined tower, blocking his view of the wall. Odenathus could feel the vibration of his enemy. It was far too familiar. He mouthed a curse.
Damn that boy! He gets stronger every time we cross swords… Gods, Dwyrin, I don't want to hurt you!
– |A sharp boom echoed through the praetorium. Nicholas' head jerked up and he looked out the nearest window in surprise. It was narrow and barred with iron, but it showed the rooftops of the city and part of the northern wall. The centurion had been deep in conversation with Sextus Verus, the commander of the Roman engineers. Nicholas had begun to worry about the water supplies in the city. The siege was beginning to drag out and it seemed the "desert bandits" weren't going to leave. It might take months for a relieving Roman army to reach them.
"What was that?" Nicholas squinted out the slit of the window. A huge column of smoke rose from the northern gate, but the sound had been much closer. Sextus Verus was staring out the other window of the corner room.
"Centurion! It's the gate here! They're all over the ramp road!"
Nicholas cursed, interrupted by a second boom that made the pens and cups on the table shake. That one was close! Without looking back, the centurion leapt down the narrow flight of stone steps leading to the main floor. Sextus' boots tattled on the stairs behind him.
At the base of the staircase there was a common room, now filled with surprised-looking men and Vladimir, who was wiping his mouth. The Walach slept late. He spent the night prowling the wall outside the city, looking for unwary bandits and stray sheep. He was hungry most of the time, since all he wanted to eat was meat. Nicholas had put everyone on siege rations the very first day and directly controlled all of the grain in the city. They might be down to rats and dogs by the end, but they would not run out of food any sooner than absolutely necessary.
"Attack on the Joppa gate," Nicholas shouted as he ran across the room. "Signal the reserves!"
The men followed with a cry, snatching up weapons and shields. One of the boys that ran messages for the garrison sprinted back up the stairs, heading for the roof of the citadel. Some of the soldiers paused a moment to cram on a helmet, then the whole lot poured out of the main floor of the citadel and into the square. Other men, citizens, were running towards the gate as well, scrawny hands wrapped around makeshift spears or scythes. Some few had crude round shields and swords.
Aelia Capitolina was cursed with a polyglot population of locals, Syrians, Egyptians, Arabs, Roman settlers and vagrants. Hardly anyone could call it the city of their fathers. Despite fierce proscriptions, a number of odd religious cults remained active in the area, and many of their adherents had fled into the city with the approach of the Arab army. Luckily for Nicholas, a large number of legionaries had been settled here as part of an Imperial effort to "pacify" the province. Those men were old, but they still remembered how to be soldiers.
They and their sons held the northern wall. Many of the other denizens of the old city refused to fight at all, hiding in their homes behind locked and barricaded doors. Nicholas sometimes wished that he had the troops to root them out and expel them from the city, but he dared not fight a civic insurrection as well.
A violent crashing echoed out of the gatehouse as Nicholas skidded to a halt in the gloom under the gate. Sunlight suddenly flooded the dark chamber as the gate splintered open. The centurion cursed violently and slipped Brunhilde from her sheath with a singing rasp. The iron head of a large ram crashed through, throwing metal studs and heavy wood to the floor in a clatter. Nicholas caught a brief glimpse of the roadway outside the shattered door. It was thick with green turbans and round shields.
"Form shield wall!" Nicholas kicked debris away with his boots. He spared an instant to praise the Walkure for watching over him this day and reminding him on waking to kit out in full armor. Men surged in from the sunlight, leaping over the scattered wood. The ram retired, hauled back by a dozen brawny arms. Nicholas leapt forward, Brunhilde's hilts in both hands, and slashed the tip of her blade across the face of the first men swarming through the opening.
They were blinded for a moment, coming out of the sun and into the close darkness of the gatehouse. Unfortunately for Nicholas, it was a poorly designed structure, allowing the road to run straight into the city without so much as a dogleg or a second, interior gate.
The double-forged tip of the sword, razor sharp, sheared through the faces of the first three men, shattering bone and cartilage, spraying blood along its path in a flat hard arc. All three screamed horribly and toppled back. They fouled the men trying to push through the gate. Nicholas jumped in, ignoring the wounded men, and Brunhilde blurred down, shattering the helm of the next man with a ringing clang. The northern steel, birthed in Nebelungen forges, cut into the soft hand-forged iron like an adze into wood. The soldier convulsed, blood flooding out of his helmet. Nicholas wrenched the blade away, deforming the helmet and flinging it off into the crowd of men outside the gate.
Spears jabbed and there was suddenly a thicket of shields in front of him. Behind the green-turbaned soldiers, Nicholas caught sight of a thick-shouldered man shouting commands. The spearmen lurched forward as one, pressed by their comrades pouring up the slope outside. Nicholas skipped back, batting aside two spears snaking for his gut.
Then Vladimir was at his side, yowling his high-pitched war cry and swinging a heavy-bladed ax. It bit into the first shield and Nicholas tore his attention away. Another spear glanced from his breastplate and he twisted to one side. Brunhilde slashed down, splintering wood and hewing through two spear shafts. Another spear ground into his side and he gasped, feeling the point dig into the center of a mail link. Blood welled out, but Nicholas was past feeling any pain. Vladimir had retreated as well, fending off five or six spearmen with vicious sweeps of the ax.
"Shields, forward!" Sextus Verus' voice rang off the arched ceiling of the gatehouse.
Legionaries pushed past, their rectangular scutum covering them from ankle to chest. Nicholas felt them part, letting him fall back through them, and then there was an unholy racket as the Roman soldiers came to grips with the Arabs in the passage. Behind their interlocking wall of shields, the legionaries pushed in close, their short swords flickering in the space between the two lines of men.
More Arabs poured in, hacking overhand with their swords and trying to push forward with their spears. The Romans held in the passage, stabbing swords reaping a bloody harvest in the tight space. A second rank of Romans pushed past Nicholas, who squeezed back, his face slick with blood, to the square. He knew what would happen now. The legionaries would do their butcher's work in the gatehouse until the Arabs tired of dying. The critical moment had passed.
Vladimir was at his side, his bushy black beard thick with gore. The ax head was slick too.
"A nice wakeup." The Walach grinned. Nicholas could feel the eagerness in the man. "To the wall?"
"Yes," Nicholas said, pushing away from the cold stone. He needed to see what was happening in the city. Was this the only attack? There were barely enough Romans in the city to watch the whole length of the wall, much less repel multiple assaults.
Vladimir took the steps to the battlement three at a time, though Nicholas was beginning to shiver from the aftereffects of the fight in the passage. When he got to the top of the stairs, he looked around in surprise. The sun was full in the sky and the white stones were already throwing back a shimmering heat. Cautiously, he peered around one of the merlons on the wall. The road below was swarming with men in desert robes, kaffiyeh twined with green cloth, swords and spears shining in the sun like a forest of silver. A sling-stone immediately spalled off the masonry and Nicholas ducked back, cursing.
"Archers!" he shouted down into the square. "Archers!"
A column of men with bows was running into the square even as he called out. Nicholas kept the reserve down at the center of the city, with boys squatting on the domed roof of the tetrapylon to watch for signals from the north gate, the praetorium, the temple of Jupiter or the tower at the Dung gate. At a full run, it took the lightly armored men of the reserves ten minutes to reach any portion of wall from the crossroads.
Vladimir howled down at the Arabs below the wall, shaking his ax at them. Someone below shot an arrow and the Walach jumped back, still grinning. "Pity the boy isn't here, he would slaughter them down there."
Nicholas waved the first archers coming up the stairs to the arrow ports. "There's only one of him, Vlad, and they attacked here after they fixed his position at the northern gate. You heard his thunder, just like I did."
Nicholas felt very tired. How long could they get by with this piecemeal defense?
The archers, mostly local kids with hunting bows and shepherds with slings, began shooting down into the press on the road. A cloud of arrows came hissing back, but the defenders had some advantage. A horn blew, clear and strong, and there were stentorian shouts from below. Nicholas risked another look over the wall. The Arabs were scrambling down the slope in a tan-and-green wave. A rear guard of men with shields backed away from the gate. Nicholas' eyes narrowed, seeing the thick-shouldered man in their midst, still shouting orders. They were withdrawing in good order, and swiftly too.
There's a commander, he thought, mayhap even a general.
The road below the walls emptied quickly and Nicholas spit a long series of curses when he saw they left it barren. No bodies, no fallen swords or spears. That was disheartening, since the citizens in the city were desperately short of armor and any kind of edged weapon. The loot from the abortive attack on the north gate had let him equip a good twenty men. There were forges inside the walls, and men skilled in making arms, but almost no iron stock to work from.
"Ah, Vlad… this is a real army. Where in Hel did it come from? Sextus! Where is that man?"
The centurion in charge of the engineers' cohort came up the steps. He was sweating. It didn't look like he had seen any combat, which was good because Nicholas had ordered him to stay out of any fighting. His technical skills were what they needed, not his sword arm.
"Yes, sir?"
Nicholas pointed with his chin to the gatehouse. "Fill in the gateway. Levy the locals for workers, but get it done today."
The engineer raised an eyebrow, though the skeptical expression was mostly lost in the ragged bangs of his hair. "Entirely?"
Nicholas nodded.
"Will a facing wall with dirt behind it be enough, or should we try and brick the whole thing in?"
"Whatever you can get done today," Nicholas said, watching the enemy flit through the orchards in the valley below. "Then do the same thing for the northern gate. Block it all up. We're not going to be sallying forth in brave panoply anytime soon."
Sextus sighed and turned away, shoulders slumped with weariness. His work crews had already been stretched to the limit by the effort to get the wall itself in order. And now this?
No rest for the wicked, thought the engineer glumly.
– |Jalal strode through the Sahaba camp, face black with rage. Night was falling and the western sky was a sheet of plum and pale pink, striated with thin clouds. The campfires threw long shadows over rows of wounded men. Entire detachments had been wiped out today. A moaning, sobbing sound rose in cacophony around the general. At the entrance to the command tent, there was a cluster of guardsmen. Jalal seized the captain of the guard by his cloak and dragged him out into the twilight.
"See these men?" The guard captain, half choked, managed to nod. His hands clawed futilely at the bowman's thick wrists. "Take your men and cut the throat of every man badly burned. Now!"
Jalal threw the man to the ground, his face transfixed with rage. The guard captain stared up at him in horror. "Kill… kill them?"
"Yes," Jalal snarled, kicking the man in the side. "Unless you've a caravan of healer priests in tow, they will all die out here, slowly and in terrible pain. They have fallen in the service of Lord Mohammed and by all accounts they will make a swift passage to paradise. So, go!"
The man scrambled up, holding his throat. Jalal stared at him, terrible fury plain in his face, until the guard captain turned away, drawing his sword. Then the general entered the command tent. At one point the tent-acquired from the defeated Romans-had boasted a saffron-yellow awning. That had been cut into regular lengths and traded for fodder and grain for the pack animals that dragged the army wagons. Jalal did not believe in luxury as an end in itself.
At the center of the tent was a portable wooden table inlaid with an ivory mosaic showing the towns and cities of the Eastern Empire. Jalal had kept this particular piece of booty. Some expensive things were tools rather than distractions. Uri Ben-Sarid, head low in exhaustion, armor and clothing caked with dust and blood, was standing on one side of the table. Most of his hair had been burned away and bandages swathed the side of his face. Opposite him, seated on a camp stool with his head in his hands, was the Palmyrene youth Odenathus.
Jalal snapped aside the cloth drape and stomped across the carpets to the table. Uri looked up at his entrance, then stepped back in alarm at the sight of his face. Without pausing, Jalal seized Odenathus by the collar of his mailed-iron shirt and dragged him to his feet.
"What-" Odenathus barely had time to make a noise before the big Sahaban smashed a thick, knotted fist into his face. There was a rude sound of crunching bone and Odenathus was flung down on the floor. Jalal kicked the three-legged chair away, sending it crashing into an ironwood chest set against the wall.
"Useless child! Are you good for anything save getting good men killed?"
Uri had leapt around the table, intending to restrain Jalal, but now he stopped short and stared at the general in surprise. The Sahaba commander ignored the tribal chieftain, watching Odenathus clutch his broken nose. The Palmyrene had not cried out or fled.
"Our enemy," Odenathus said in a tight, controlled voice, "is stronger than I am. The best shield that I can build shatters before him if he puts forth his full effort." Blood seeped from under his hand, but Jalal saw that the youth's eyes were fixed calmly on him. Odenathus got his feet under him and stood.
"Then we will not play about with trying to stop his strongest effort," Jalal barked, voice ringing with sarcasm. "We will just kill him and be done with the matter."
"Kill him?" Odenathus' hand dropped in surprise, revealing a growing bruise and a crooked nose. "I can't kill him, he's my friend!"
Jalal's fist was lightning, smashing into the Palmyrene's stomach. Odenathus buckled, a great roaring sound in his ears, and tried to bring up a hand to protect his face. The Sahaban's trunklike leg crashed into his jaw and the Palmyrene was thrown back again, cracking his head against one of the supporting tent posts.
"We're not playing about here, you stupid child!" Jalal's voice rose into a howl. "Six hundred men were killed today because you couldn't stop your dear beloved friend!" Jalal grabbed Odenathus by the hair and dragged him to his feet. The youth could barely see or breathe. "I would kill you now to appease their spirits, if you weren't the only wizard I happen to have around!"
Odenathus sensed another fist coming at his face and, finally, anger sparked in his heart. He had spent the day wallowing in guilt, watching the litter bearers haul wounded men into the camp. The assault on the northern gate was a spectacular failure, with hundreds of men incinerated by Dwyrin's fire. The siege tower had been destroyed and the Sahaba who had reached the battlement had been hewn down. Odenathus had tried, again and again, to deflect the bolts, to hold a shield against Dwyrin's power, but it had been useless. His friend was too strong.
Jalal was still screaming at him and it was too much. Odenathus, despite the blinding pain in his face and head, let his thought settle and his will reach out into the hidden world.
The fist whipped through the air, aimed for the youth's ear, and then it stopped as if it had plunged into tar. Jalal goggled for a moment, seeing the air thicken around his outstretched arm. Odenathus' face wavered as if a fire stood between them, bloody and terribly grim.
"You may not hit me again," grated the young wizard and raised his hand.
The air rang like a great temple bar, drawing a cry of pain from Uri, and Jalal was hurled the length of the tent. His head, still encased in a heavy iron legionnaire's helmet, cracked against the main tent post, splintering the wood. The general gave forth a guttural grunt and sagged to the floor like a sack of millet. Odenathus stumbled forward, lips drawn back in a snarl. The map table sprang away from the distorted wall of air in front of him. Chairs and chests followed it a moment later, pressed aside by a gigantic invisible hand. Uri felt the power in the air wash over him, flinging him back into the cloth wall. Curlicues of pale white fire danced on the metal objects in the room and the Ben-Sarid lord felt his arms tingle as the hairs stood on end.
"This is your solution, to hit something until you feel better?" Odenathus laughed as he approached the supine form of the general. The body twitched, arms and legs limp, but now moved by the power that thickened the air and distorted the light. The Palmyrene clenched his fist and Jalal was blown through the back of the tent. The heavy cloth parted with a ripping sound and suddenly the entire back wall was gone, shredded away. The general sailed out into the darkness, flying over the heads of surprised soldiers and camp followers. A great wind rushed out, flattening their fires and blowing down tents.
"I will not kill my friend!"
Odenathus' voice raged like the storm winds out of the desert, cracking with anger and despair.
Jalal hit a supply wagon filled with huge pottery amphorae with a resounding crash. Wine and oil jetted out of the broken containers, leaving the general's legs sticking up out of the mess of crockery and broken wicker.
My friends. Odenathus spun around, his eyes wide with surprise. It was the familiar voice of Mohammed, but it echoed in his thoughts like his own. We go, today, to war against a great nation. It is an empire that many of us have served in our lives. There are those among you who have friends, even relations, in the ranks of those we will fight.
Odenathus stopped, shock-still, blood and tears leaking down his battered face. These were words Lord Mohammed had addressed to the entire army when they had set forth from Petra to invade the northern Decapolis. The great camp at Lejjun had been their objective.
The day will come, as the Merciful and Compassionate One knows, when you will face someone dear to you in battle. They will be your enemy. They will strive against you, against the will of the power that moves the tide and the stars. When this occurs, you must put your faith and your heart in the hands of he who made men from clots of blood. All things begin with him and all things end with him. We strive against wickedness, and any man who falls in the service of the all-knowing and the all-seeing, he will find that paradise is his reward.
Odenathus shuddered. The boy, Dwyrin, his friend, was an enemy. Rome, the empire that he had once sworn to serve, was an enemy. There could be no quarter between them. He had given himself over to the service of the Lord of the Wasteland. Now the first hard choice had come.
The strange wind died down. Uri fell to the ground, as did a great deal of tent, crockery, tables and chairs. Odenathus knelt on the ground, his face contorted. He was trembling, trying not to cry out. He felt cold and empty, but something had become very clear to him.
I must kill Dwyrin or more of us will die.
Odenathus stuffed a cloth against his nose. It was still bleeding. He stood. Uri was watching him from the other side of the tent with wide eyes.
"Apologies, Lord Uri. I did not mean to harm anyone. That lummox is right, though."
The Ben-Sarid sheathed his dagger and stood up. His lean face was troubled. It had been a very hard day for the clan lord too, for his men had suffered grievously in the failed attack.
"What do you mean?" Uri sounded tired and exhausted.
"My mind has been clouded," Odenathus said and he realized that this was the literal truth. "I know this enemy wizard's capabilities as well as I know my own. I have no excuse for the losses your tribe has sustained. I owe your people a debt of blood. It will be repaid."
There was a clattering sound out in the darkness and a stentorian shouting. Odenathus grinned, his teeth white in the red wash that covered his face and beard. Jalal seemed to have recovered. "Once that blowing ox returns to the stable, I will tell you what we are going to do."
– |The streets of the city were narrow and overhung by ancient buildings, making them absolutely pitch black after dark. Dwyrin was only partially conscious of the gloom. His head hurt so much he wouldn't have noticed a slap. Guided by one of the local boys, he stumbled down a broad, flat flight of steps. Then they turned and passed through a maze of corridors and streets. The boy seemed to know where they were going, and Dwyrin followed along doggedly.
White sparks drifted in front of his eyes, clouding his vision. Curlicues of violet flame seemed to shimmer along his hands and arms if he looked down. Another sorcerer or thaumaturge might have been gibbering in fear now, watching in horror as the walls and bricks that surrounded him faded in and out of sight. Sometimes lighted rooms yawned before him, blurred by the indistinct vapor of walls and doors. He had overextended himself today, letting fire flow through him like a rain channel. It had eroded the symbolic mental barriers that kept his conscious mind from comprehending the true world.
Those same symbologies defined who he was in human terms. They gave him a name, a physical description, context for his thoughts and actions and they made him a unique entity. For most men, when those symbols ceased to define them, they went mad. Who could remain sane if he looked upon the face of chaos unveiled?
Once, Dwyrin had been stressed almost to the point of dissolution by the failure of these symbologies. He had survived. In the testing fire, he had become aware that there was a core pattern within the whirling dance of fire that described his physical body. There was a self, buried at the heart of his mobile shape. It was atomic, indivisible, but it was easily overlooked or forgotten. Something gave his pattern and form will and intent. This was what the teachers at the school named the ka, the indivisible spirit of man. Dwyrin had lived, clinging to that last, final uniqueness. From it, all things sprang. Many masters of the art never reached that point, blinded by their own pride and ego.
After an endless time filled with slowly writhing snake patterns that curled and squirmed under his feet, the boy led him into the citadel gatehouse. The room was warm and filled with firelight. Dwyrin stumbled into the edge of a table, cracking his thigh. Distantly, some part of his physical mind registered pain.
"Come on, lad, let me get an arm under…" Smell intruded, presenting an intelligible form where sight had failed. It was a warm, musky odor, thick with memories of the forest and newly turned earth and rotting logs.
"Vladimir?"
"Yes, lad," the Walach said, carrying him up the stairs. Dwyrin let his head fall against the man's chest. It was warm too, and soft with thick dark hair. Sound penetrated: the regular beating of a heart, the crack of a boot against a wooden door. Then there was softness: a blanket being turned over his weary body. Dwyrin tried to bring his vision under control.
"Is he all right?" That must be Nicholas. He sounded tired too, and concerned.
"His heart is strong," Vladimir answered, "but look at his eyes. Is he mad?"
"Lad?" Nicholas again. Dwyrin was aware of pressure and something closed. Ah, his eyelids. A hand was over them. Dwyrin could see the pattern of veins in it, pulsing with blood, and the twitch of muscles as it moved.
"I… hear… you." It was hard to make this body work. It moved so slowly. It was so cumbersome. "I… must sleep."
"Wine, perhaps?" Vladimir again and the sound of pottery rattling on the table.
"I've something better." Nicholas, voice receding. "Here." It was close again.
Something hot and bitter flooded his senses. Taste was still working properly. Something strong with alcohol. After a moment, Dwyrin felt a warm glow in his physical body, and the insane flight of the tiny brilliant lights that formed the air and the walls and the insides of his own eyelids suddenly dimmed. Welcome darkness flooded up, blotting out the true world.
The boy, lying on a Legion-issue cot in a nearly bare stone room in the citadel of the city, snored softly. His face, which had been a tense rictus, relaxed and the pale light seeping from his skin faded. Nicholas, his face slowly falling into shadow as the strange radiance died, breathed a sigh of relief.
"It's too hard on him," Vladimir said. "It wears on him. Look at him, Nick, he's like a ghost!"
"I know." Nicholas laid the back of his hand on the boy's forehead. It was very hot, the skin radiating heat like an iron stove. "But what can I do? Without him, those bandits would be over the wall in a day and we would all be dead."
Vladimir shook his head. He had no answer either.