The Acropolis of Constantinople
A desultory wind gusted out of the west, carrying the smell of burning tar and wood. Dark clouds of smoke hung over the roofs of the city, masking the massive walls from view. In the distance, indistinct, a dull gleam of fire lit the sky. Parts of the Arab fortifications were still burning. She could smell the corpses, dry and dusty with a sharp aftertaste of broken stone and thorn. The Dark Queen paced along the roofline of the temple of Hecate, her humor foul, a heavy dark gray cloak wrapped around her thin shoulders. Smoky zephyrs tugged at her hair. The sun was shrouded, passing down into a heavy bank of cloud filling the western horizon. Though the day was not yet done, the gloom of twilight covered the city. Down below her, fires tended by nervous priests burned on the altars of all the young gods.
The Queen snarled to herself, wrapping a white hand around a painted statue lining the edge of the roof. She stared to the west, bending her will to penetrate the murk and smoke rising before the city. She knew from the frightened whispers of the daywalker children that a great army had come, breaking the siege, clearing the highway leading down the Thracian coast to Perinthus and on to ancient Macedon.
The army of the West has come, they said, confused, but the Emperor will not let them enter the city.
More than just an army had come out of the west. Two brilliant stars burned subtly in the firmament of the hidden world. She could feel them at a distance, one away in the north beyond the Horn, one in the south, across the Thracian hills. Powers were gathering for battle. Amusingly, many black-hulled ships were drawn up on the beaches across the Horn on the Galatan shore. The sight brought back ancient memories.
Snorting at the thought, the Queen folded herself up between two of the lithe statues-maidens bearing bowls of wheat and olive and grape-the hood falling forward over her face. Dark red lips quirked up in a smile, watching the priests below her vantage raising their voices to the sky in entreaty. There is no one to hear you, fools. All your gods are dead or sleeping.
A chill came upon her with the thought. All but one, and he is a god of darkness.
She had not felt the power in the east for days. But it was still there, subtly disturbing the patterns and flows in the hidden world. That, she could feel in her bones. The dark power was hiding, covering itself with signs and wards, but it pressed at the fabric of the world like a heavy stone on a canvas sail. Against these dark thoughts she held one faint hope: her children were all safely away in their fat-bellied ships. Months would pass before she would hear from them. She wagered against herself that this battle would be done by then. The heaviness in the air promised doom and slaughter.