Empire of the Eagle

22

THE STANDARD eased into Quintus's hand, and the sun swooped down upon it, picking out each detail of the bird's bronze plumage. It felt right in his hand, fitting like the hilt of a veteran's sword. He shut his eyes against the dazzle of the sun on the Eagle's wings and his own tears.

The first time he had held it, only for a moment, in The Surena's camp, it had been before a blow to his head had nearly driven wits and life from him. He remembered, how he remembered, the reek of blood, sweat, and metal that had been one of the last things he had sensed. But with the fear and the pain had come the realization that he had come, at last, to the right place and done the right thing.

Perhaps he had defended a leader not worthy of his service, but Crassus had been a proconsul of Rome; and that was worth, he thought, any price he might pay. And here, far from Rome, was its very sign. Whether or not any word of his life and service ever reached the patres conscripti who were as much an object of his grandsire's veneration as the family altar, or that turbulent, brawling people who had transformed the lands around the Tiber, once again, he had that sense of purpose.

Grounding the standard, as he had in that enemy city not so far in the past, Quintus surveyed the shrunken force. His own renewal of spirit had inspired the others— and it had been a long, long time since he had thought of them as "his men." In the presence of their Eagle, they stood ready, falling perhaps by instinct into the familiar pattern.

Quintus felt himself aglow with a light that did not fade. It fed upon him, yet it returned a new strength in exchange. Using him as a focus, that inner strength reached out to his men, uniting them into not just a fighting force but one spirit.

That dazzle was gone, leaving Quintus with the sense that something profound had been accomplished—but just what, he couldn't find a name for.

Draupadi approached, eyeing the Eagle warily. "That is no less your weapon," she said, "than the sword you bear."

The sword he bore had been Arjuna's. Quintus stared upward—would that proud bronze bird now take wing?

In his grasp, the standard quivered as if the Eagle surmounting it indeed mantled its wings, ready for flight. But that was only the way of eagles in the heights. Aloft in their own place, they swooped down, arcing, and circling, borne by the winds from the peaks. Here were no mountains.

A glow from the Eagle reached to gild the sky. There, the color was deepening and turning sullen. Quintus tore his eyes from the Eagle to look to Ssu-ma Chao. Before any of the buran, the great desert storms, the sky turned brazen. Then, as the storm struck, it darkened with wind, thickened and made visible with grit and sand.

A prudent traveler—and Ssu-ma Chao was the best they had—would be alert to such changes and would order out the protective felts in time. Thus, Ssu-ma Chao opened his mouth to shout, scrabbling for his own protective coverings. And then the Easterner paused, as if at a loss. All along the line of march, the camels stood motionless, not complaining the way they did when sensing a storm.

Yet that sky, like a brass bowl overturned above them, was now the color that heralded the worst of storms. Only there was no wind, no stir of sand. The very air itself might now be as dead as the land.

The camels began to crowd together, as if in rebellion against a too-weighty burden. There was a heaviness pressing down upon all until Quintus was certain that even the long dunes would be flattened—even without a wind.

Draupadi whirled about, scanned the horizon, then turned to Ganesha.

"All about us—we are ringed in."

The old man turned to face outward as if confronting a still-invisible enemy.

It was Lucilius who launched into action, breaking the spell. His green eyes wide with fear, he edged closer to the standard, step by heavy step. He might have been struggling against a swollen river current.

"The Eagle," he mouthed. "Give..."

Quintus swung the standard out of reach.

"Give it to him," ordered Wang Tou-fan.

"Let him take it," Quintus retorted. He spoke without any regard for rank. Surely it must be clear to all that the Eagle chose—men obeyed.

"Let him try, that is," the tribune added.

About Quintus, the decimated Roman force came slowly alive. Some moved forward to stand between Quintus and the Ch'in soldiers. One or two moved in as if to guard Draupadi and Ganesha. The rest, without being commanded, fell into their familiar ranks.

Again, Lucilius grabbed for the Eagle.

"No." Quintus jerked it out of his reach.

Then the sand began to hum. Singing sand, some wayfarers called it. However, this was no howl, but like the flaps of some appalling insect's wings, enticing lesser creatures to come and be devoured.

Beneath their blistered feet, the ground trembled. Thunder drummed, then rumbled again, as if summoning full force. A faint blue spark flew from man to man in the ranks. The sky darkened toward twilight. Now the air seemed to cool. The bedraggled crests on the Romans' helms rose. Quintus sensed energies building up the way the tension builds in a catapult.

"Iron," muttered Ganesha. "There is iron here, and they know it...."

"Quick!" Draupadi cried. "The metal you wear—off with it for your lives' sake!"

Long ago, most of the Romans had stowed their armor on packbeasts. The Ch'in mainly wore harnesses of leather. But still, there were iron nails in the Legions' boots.... The matted hair on the back of Quintus's neck stirred. Shed belts, weapons, tools, yes, but to go barefoot in this realm of sharp rocks was a sentence of slow death, and he had a sudden nightmare image of Black Naacals tracking them by sniffing along bloody footprints.

However, it was Draupadi who had warned them. And she knew what might follow. "Off with boots—all iron!" he commanded.

What of his own footcoverings? He could stoop to shed them, but he would have to drop the Eagle to do so. Better to stand, to feel this immensity of power as it built up. Was this what Arjuna had found when he discovered Pasupata and learned to wield it? Was this the ultimate warrior's test? He wished he could remember.

Tension continued to build. Quintus's hands quivered as the metal of the Eagle vibrated, and that movement fed down the staff. He could almost hear the bronze hum.

A savage crack split heaven and earth, blinding Quintus. The bolt of white, tinged with purple, was the last thing he saw. Caught in the darkness, he felt the rumble of the thunder even through his feet, oversetting his balance. He toppled to his knees.

Exhausted as they were, the pack animals plunged and screamed. Someone shrieked, a terrible sound, annihilated by the thunder and the stink of burning. Now the wind did blow, and Quintus scented garlic and approaching rain, incongruous in this waste. His eyes watered, as tears forced themselves out beneath his eyelids.

Voices nearby:

"Jupiter Optimus Maximus, did you see Sextus?"

"Burnt like a pig ... gods!"

Had he been so frightened, then, that he must weep as he had not done even at his mother's funeral? No: Tears were warm, and the moisture now running down his face was cool. A wind continued—not the Vulcan's forge of the deep desert, but a true breeze, heavy with water and salt.

Rain came in that basin of salt and grit, dried before the stars altered the pattern of their going. In Quintus's hand the standard tingled. A tremendous wave of well-being rushed through him, worn as he was.

Rain was falling with increasing strength, cool on parched skin. The darkness of the sky was now water, released from the clouds that had suddenly gathered. Quintus's talisman pulsed, and the power he had sensed before built up again, seeking discharge.

"Get down and hold!" he shouted. No need for any man to be the tallest thing on this plain. Please all the gods that his men had shed their metal gear. There might be another lightning strike among them.

I must order burial detail for Sextus, he thought.

The energies vibrating in the Eagle built up nearly past endurance, and he tensed, waiting for the strike.

This time the crack of lightning drew a response from the earth itself, which rumbled accompaniment to the thunder. Far and near, the crash echoed and re-echoed all over the desert basin. Men and horses toppled and fell, rolling upon the wet grit. Even the camels panicked and tried to plunge away. Some of the men rose and staggered after them, unsure of their footing on ground that was suddenly more slick, or higher or lower than it had been moments ago.

The smell of a salt sea intensified as the rain fell. Quintus opened his mouth and gulped a mouthful of water. Such bounty made him drunk. Proconsuls were fools to drink Falernian, he thought giddily, if they could have water like this. Someone cheered, and Rufus silenced him fast.

Another lightning bolt, searing purple-white even despite the barrier of Quintus's eyelids. When the explosion dissipated, he dared to test his sight, to seek sight of the company....

He found himself gazing in dumb amazement over a vast split in the earth, or in the seabed dead so many years, but stirring in its long death with deadly strength.

Draupadi gasped, while Ganesha chanted in a tongue unknown to the Romans and the Ch'in.

"Stay back!" Quintus ordered, but he himself edged forward over the unsteady ground, holding the standard high as if he headed a proud marching Legion.

Behind him, Rufus shouted to men to catch the rainwater in any container they could find.

Did Quintus indeed carry a weapon stronger than any he had dreamed might exist? Had the Eagle not drawn down the lightnings, aye, and shielded him from that raw force? May Charon ferry Sextus swiftly; he took a bolt I fear was meant for me, he thought. And was the standard not the source of the new strength flowing into his body?

He had sought and found weapons—Arjuna's sword, for one, and that length of wood and horn that passed for a bow. Now, he thought, he had sought and found the weapon of supreme destruction for this time and place. He could have laughed at the irony of the gods, who decreed that the very weapon he had sought for so long was the Eagle, the loss of which had meant his disgrace.

In what guise did Pasupata come to you, Arjuna? he asked the voice inside his mind. He was not surprised when the Delphic, aggravating voice did not answer.

Whatever form its power took, for this age, Pasupata had now manifested itself in the Eagle. And Quintus was both its master and its servant. His eyes met Draupadi's, and she smiled at him. How beautiful she was with the rain draping the curves of her form. No illusions there. Even during the lightning, she had not removed the ring he had given her.

"Hold firm!" Ganesha cried out in a voice stronger than any Quintus had ever heard him use.

The land quivered with aftershocks. Now even the horizon appeared to their dazed eyes as if it were dancing. Another crack came, again followed by thunder above and below them. Quintus sprawled this time, but fought his way back to his feet, using the standard as lever. Pasupata might for the moment be a lame man's staff. Leaning on that support, Quintus wavered forward.

He came to a halt on the very lip of the chasm that the lightning and earthquakes had opened in the desert. The Ch'in were wailing to their gods, their ancestors, or any other powers that might award them a moment's thought at all. From the Romans came muttered oaths and prayers, all equally useful.

Quintus paused at the edge of the pit, two aftershocks made him reel, back and forth. Only the standard, stabbed deeply into the ground, kept him from falling into the dark depths of the pit that had opened.

All this land had been under water once—an inland lake of such a size, perhaps, to rival the Middle Sea. Nor had that forgotten sea been any more unknown in its time than the one serving Roman ships. Ships had also sailed it—and creatures had dwelt in its depths.

Quintus's talisman heated—a warning but not with a real alarm, as he dropped, to creep forward on his belly. Beneath him, as if the seabed had swallowed it at the critical moment, lay a ship of a design unknown to him. Ganesha might have sailed on such a craft, he thought.

The seabed had opened and trapped this ship—and apparently, in addition, the sea creature, longer than any kraken, in the very act of opening its jaws to engulf the vessel. It was only bones now, but the length of back and the width of jaws made it by no means certain that it would have failed in the attempt.

Draupadi and Ganesha knelt beside him, staring down at the remains of that Titanic battle.

"The Flame shine upon them," Ganesha murmured.

Water must have been thrashed up over that slanted deck, as the sea creature struck the ship, driven from the depths as the earth shuddered, maddened enough to attack. The thing must have seen the ship as its enemy. Perhaps it was as afraid as the men who watched the water boil as it arrowed up from the deepest water and screamed as its immense jaws opened, distended, and tried to swallow them.

There might have been White Naacals on board like Ganesha himself. But at that moment, none of their prayers and powers had availed them.

The last few moments of the crew—Quintus jerked his gaze away. Too well, he could imagine the water thrashing, the gibbering terror, even the desperate composure of the Naacals as they sought to fight off an impossible enemy.

Time and place flickered for Quintus, as if he could remember it all in truth. Some had fled below, had turned inward. One or two flung themselves overboard. Others prayed, even as those among them who were warriors struck at the great monster with their weapons, hoping to buy time for the Naacals to bring greater weapons to bear. But they had failed. Why had they failed? Overpowered by the Black Naacals? Was their power weakened by what they surely fled? Or perhaps it had been the earth itself, not the Black Naacals, which had ultimately killed them, allowing their souls freedom; The monster would grasp their ship by the stern, was pulling it down, and then the earth opened to swallow creature and ship alike in blackness and pressure and, once the heaving ceased, silence.

How had Quintus remembered? Look again. He looked down into the pit and into his memories simultaneously, and the effort almost robbed him of his senses.

"Aiyeeeeee! The dragon! The great lung, King of Dragons!"

The Ch'in had been slower than he to approach the pit. Now many of them panicked. Some cast themselves face down on the wet salt. Others ran as if attempting to escape what the crew of that long-dead ship had not been able to flee. They ran and fell, and when they could not get up, they crawled, mindless with fear.

Wang Tou-fan's path led him near the pit. Surely he would miss it.

"Come back, man!" Lucilius cried. He even started after the Ch'in—to stop him or push him in? Then another tremor sent the Roman sprawling. He turned his sprawl into a desperate grab at the man's knees, caught him, attempting to pull him back.

Wang Tou-fan screamed like a woman in the last stages of giving birth. With astonishing force, he fought to pull free of Lucilius—a ferocious and maddened dance that brought him to the very lip of the chasm.

"You can't save him!" Rufus shouted. "Let him go, lad!"

Whether or not Lucilius would have abandoned his fellow conspirator was never to be known. Once again an aftershock rumbled through the earth, spawning more tremors. Lucilius fell, and Wang Tou-fan, screaming about the great dragon, hurled himself into the pit.

Quintus's talisman heated and he clutched onto whatever flimsy support he might find. What was coming now was no mere tremor. Rocks shook and fell; the lightning exploded in sheets across the sky; and the earth snapped shut like the lid of an enormous chest, reclaiming its secrets and adding yet another victim to its toll.

Once more, the thunder spoke, a prolonged rumble as if the earth now digested what it had engulfed. Then, all was still. The dunes had tumbled and toppled into new shapes smelling of salt and ancient seas. Puddles glistened on the salt flats, rippling as the storm winds brushed them. Already, the heat began to rise.

The talisman fell from Quintus's shaking fingers. At his feet, the tiny bronze dancer, sparks quivering in the torches that it held, danced its dance of grief and exaltation.

He scooped it up one-handed and thrust it back into his tunic.

Then, leaning on the Eagle's staff, he turned and edged painstakingly back to where he had left his men. How many of them had survived?

One of the Ch'in camel drivers had crumpled to his knees, and lay with his head in his arms, whimpering. He could not believe this place, could not accept it. Wails rose from his fellows. They were a superstitious lot who saw demons in every aspect of the desert. A prodigy like this—if something weren't done to quell the panic, they might never recover.

"Get the animals' heads!" someone ordered. The command was repeated in Parthian, then in Ch'in.

The Romans hastened to retrain the animals. The Ch'in soldiers, dazed by the loss of Wang Tou-fan, moved more slowly. At this rate, they might never form back into a party capable of traveling.

"Hold!" Quintus shouted. His voice came out as a croak. Despite the downpour, his mouth was dry with fear of what he had seen....

...water in the desert ... the heave and torrent of the sea as it sank into the earth.... Draupadi's and Ganesha's refuge came to his mind as some last glimmer of a Golden Age. He didn't think he would ever cease to thirst. And the rain was stopping.

"Stay where you are." His voice came out a little more strongly, but still, no one heard it. You must! he told himself. No lives must be lost because his body failed him.

Grasping the staff of the Eagle, he tried a third time. "Stop there!"

The standard quivered in his hand. Deep clouds in the sky appeared to shift, and sunlight struck the bronze Eagle. Beams of light glittered along its wings, arcing out over the scatter of troops. A steadier light engulfed Quintus: He shivered as strength flowed into him. Gradually, his troops turned. The Ch'in who had collapsed raised themselves from bellies and knees. Those Ch'in, led by Ssu-ma Chao, who had kept their composure by care of animals, reassembled.

Now the clouds dissipated, blown away by a wind tasting of salt. The wind seemed to spread the light from the Eagle Quintus held until it formed a dome beneath the arch of heaven, a dome of protection. The Eagle's wings were over them, he thought.

They gathered close, staring up at it. The light rippled into all the colors of the rainbow. Incredulous smiles appeared on lips that had never thought to do aught again but scream. Then the light vanished. Romans and Ch'in stood on the barren, churned-up ground, staring at each other.

Two men turned to Sextus's body. One scooped up a handful of salt and grit and mud and scattered it about the charred remains.

"He was our comrade," Rufus chided. "We'll make the time to bury him properly."

Then, Quintus knew, they must move on. Perhaps the Eagle could guide them.