Shadow of Ararat

THE GATES OF TAURIS

The night sky over the city was lit with a sickly green glow. Odd lights burned and flickered on the battlements of Tauris. A mile downstream from the city, the Emperor of the West, Martius Galen Atreus, stared north across the swift waters of the Talkeh. The river was running deep here, and the far bank was only dimly visible in the moonlight. Where he stood, on a flat-topped hill overlooking the river, surrounded by his guardsmen bearing torches and lanterns, the wind rustled in the leaves of the sycamores and aspen trees that crowded the bank. At the Emperor’s side, one of the Eastern scouts raised a hooded lantern and flipped the stiff leather shutter up and down, then up and down again.

In the darkness on the far bank, there was an answering flare of light: flash-flash-flash. The men around the Emperor murmured softly; no one had expected their allies to be where they had promised to be. Who expected such things of barbarians? Galen raised a hand and the noise stopped.

“Send a man across with a rope,” he said to the centurion standing next to him. The twenty-year man turned and muttered gruffly into the darkness. A moment later two men climbed up the hill, stripped to the waist, with heavy leather belts. The men were well built, with thick chests and arms like wrestlers. Their dark hair was cut very short and their skin gleamed in the torchlight. Galen looked them over and nodded.

The centurion growled at the two. “There’s a band of horseflies on the far bank. They have an emissary to speak to the Emperor. Take a line across and bring the fellow back.” While he spoke, other legionnaires had snapped a waxed line of heavy cordage onto hooks built into the backs of the leather belts. The two legionnaires saluted and scrambled down through the reeds that lined, the water.

“Batavians,” the centurion rasped, “swim like eels.” His breath puffed white in the cold air. Galen nodded, drawing a heavy wool cloak around his shoulders. Winter was coming. There was a quiet splash, like a frog jumping into the water. The rope began to spool out from the hands of the legionnaires that were holding it.

The Emperor waited patiently in the darkness.

Galen rubbed his eyes wearily. It was late and he had been up since before dawn. Luckily, he sat in a chair a pace back from the heavy goldplated monster of a throne that Hera-clius’ servants had been lugging over mountain and valley for the last six weeks, and could indulge himself with a yawn. The great tent, fully the size of a villa,~was warm too, with hundreds of beeswax candles to light the audience chamber at its heart. The Eastern interpreter was listening intently to the words of a wizened old man in a bright blue shirt with heavy stitching around the collar and embroidery at the cuffs. The old man, with a wisp of white hair around his head and pale-yellow pantaloons, reminded the Western Emperor of a mummer in a traveling show. He smiled a little and turned his attention back to the notes that his secretary had given him of the numbers of wagons that were still sound, of the number of bushels of wheat and barley that remained in stores.

Long ago, when Galen had first opened discussions with the new Emperor of the East, they had struck upon an arrangement by which precedence could be resolved when one of them was in the lands of the other. By Imperial fiat, each had declared the other his magister militatum, an old title reserved for the official in charge of the armies of the state. Each Emperor had then agreed to the appointment of a strategos who actually performed those functions when the magister was absent from his post. Now, with both of them on campaign, Galen found that Heraclius had been serious about his fellow Emperor fulfilling his duties. In truth, it worked well, for Heraclius spent nearly all of his time unraveling political difficulties among his warlords and the local tribesmen, leaving Galen to tend to the army.

The little old man stopped speaking, and the interpreter turned to the Eastern Emperor, who was beginning to fidget on his golden throne.

“Avtokrator,” said the interpreter, a nobleman from Tarsus that had joined the army at the behest of Prince Theodore, in heavily accented Greek. “The headman blesses your house and your sons and welcomes you to the land of the Armenes. He says, too, that the Persians have many men, many thousands of men in the city. But he knows that the arms of the Rhomanoi are the strongest and that all the land will soon be free of the blight of the Iron Hats.”

Heraclius nodded and smoothed his beard. He was weary; the day had been very long. “Tell him, good Pro-culus, that the Emperor is pleased to receive his friendship. Tell him that he and the other headmen hereabouts will receive many fine gifts from my hand if they are good friends to us. Ask him if he knows who commands the defense of the city across the river, and-more to the point-if there are any other bridges across the river than the one at the city.”

The Tarsian nobleman related this in turn to the old Armenian and then the two dickered back and forth for a time, until Heraclius raised an eyebrow at Proculus and the noble bowed deeply to him in apology.

“Great Lord, pardon me. The headman says that it is said that the Persian general known as the Boar commands the defense of the city, and that the men who stand upon its walls wear coats of red and gold. By this I take it that they are Immortals.”

Galen looked up at this; he had been listening with half an ear while he made notes for his lieutenants to deploy the men and begin building a fortified camp. The other Eastern officers had stiffened at the mention of the Boar. Pursing his lips, Galen wracked his brain and then remembered: The Boar was the nickname of the foremost Persian general, Shahr-Baraz, a giant of a man who was rumored to have never lost a battle or a fight. The Roman remembered, too, that Heraclius had sent three great armies against the Persians when Chrosoes had begun this war and that the Boar had smashed each in turn. Galen rubbed his jaw, feeling sandpapery stubble under his fingers. How do these Easterners manage with those beards? he wondered. The. name of the Boar was something to conjure with for the Easterners: the enemy who had never been defeated by their arms.

“Ask the headman,” Heraclius said, “if any new men have come to the city of late or have left. Ask him if he has seen the General Baraz or if he has only heard that he commands here.”

Another long session of muttering went back and forth, then Proculus said: “Great Lord, the headman says that three seven-days ago, many of the horsemen left for the south in haste, but that the Boar was not with them. He says that the Boar has been seen often, stalking the battlements of the city with his banner men. He says that he has seen this with his own eyes. No other men have left the city, save for strong bands of the Iron Hats to punish the villages around the city.”

Galen looked over at Heraclius at this last. The Eastern Emperor stopped drumming his fingers on the armrest of the throne. “Punish the villages? What occurred that they had to be punished?”

Proculus spread his hands in dismay. “The headman does not know, only that two seven-days ago there was a great clamor in the city. The next morning the Iron Hats rode out in strong companies and raided all of the villages in the valley. Many of the villagers had fled already, hearing strange rumors from their kinsmen in the city, but those who remained were taken hostage and their dwellings burned.”

Heraclius raised an eyebrow at this and glanced over at Galen, who shook his head a little.

“Since that time the Iron Hats make a foray each day and take prisoner any of those who are foolish enough to be caught in the open. The headman says that nearly all of the villagers have fled into the hills. No word comes from the gates of Tauris.”

Galen frowned and scratched off a line on his wax tablet that read: native laborers?

The Emperor of the East listened for a little while longer and then dismissed the headman, though the old man was given many gifts of cloth and jewels. Heraclius stood, groaning, and divested himself of the heavy jeweled robe and crown. His servants took these things away.

“What do you think?” Heraclius asked.

Galen looked up and then put his tablets and notes to one side. “I think that my engineers can put a bridge across the river in five or six days, one strong enough to carry horses and wagons. If we’re lucky, there’s a solid footing well away from the city walls, outside the shot of a heavy engine. The Khazars can cross the river and we can ignore the city.”

Heraclius rubbed his nose and frowned at the suggestion. “That would leave a Persian garrison right on top of our line of retreat. They would play Hades with our communications back to Constantinople.”

Galen nodded.

“If we have to take the city, brother,” he said, “we’ll, have to build a bridge anyway, to move the army to the other side of the river so that we can invest the walls and begin siege works. That will take even more time, and as you’ve doubtless noticed, the nights are beginning to chill.”

Heraclius sighed and pursed his lips in thought. He signaled to one of his servants for wine.

“The Persians,” he said slowly, “built a fine stone bridge across the river, with a bed of bricks and mortar.”

The Western Emperor scowled at the Eastern Emperor. Heraclius gratefully accepted a brass cup filled with dusky red wine.

“A fine stone bridge,” Galen said, “that runs into a double towered gate at the center of a city occupied by several thousand veteran men as well as militia, and perhaps-just perhaps-this general who has taken down your breeches and given you a whipping three times before. If-if, mind you-we were to try to take the bridge and the gates by assault, it would be my men who would bleed for it.”

Heraclius nodded somberly and drained his cup.

“You’ve the heavy infantry,” he said, raising the empty cup in salute, “and the experience. How soon can we make the attempt?”

Galen settled back in his chair and thought. Heraclius downed another cup. The Western Emperor sat forward again and began making notes on his tablets. “I’ll need six days to prepare. Then we’ll see. I shall need all the men you can give me, or find, for the preparations.“

There was a note in his voice that made Heraclius look at him quizzically. Galen arched an eyebrow, but said nothing. A predatory look had entered his eyes. He had the beginnings of a plan. He pulled one of the tablets over to him and made a quick notation, grease.

“The rumors are true,” Nikos said, sitting on the edge of one of the rough stone crypts. “A Roman army is on the south side of the Talkeh, and it seems to be digging in to stay. At least, they’ve gone beyond a night camp. From the top of the grain silo, I could make out some kind of big effort east of the city, up the river. I’d guess a bridge, or maybe some kind of diversion canal to lower the waters.”

Thyatis nodded and turned around slowly in the circle of space in front of the crypt wall. She met the eyes of the assembled Bulgars, Armenians, and townsfolk one by one. In the wake of the disappearance, the Persians had enforced a very strict martial law upon the city. No one was allowed out after nightfall, and gatherings of more than two people during the day were forbidden. Twenty or thirty people were crammed into the lower vault of the crypt of the Se-sain family. It was the only hidden place left that was large enough for them to meet in.

“The Roman army is very fond of siegework,” she said, stopping next to Nikos. “In other circumstances, they would bridge the river and surround the city with an earthen rampart on all sides so no one could break out. Then they would really get to work. This army is in a hurry, so I fear that they have a more drastic effort in mind.”

Thyatis reached behind her and dug around in the open coffin. Some of the Armenians began muttering among themselves, but Jusuf and Sahul, who were standing by the trapezoidal doorway, glared at them and the locals quieted down. Thyatis pulled out a handful of bones and two skulls, hooked on her fingers through the eye sockets. Nikos brushed aside some of the dust on the floor with his boot.

“The key to the city, to the whole situation, is the bridge over the Talkeh.”

She laid a pair of thigh bones in parallel and then two femurs across them at right angles. “Wide enough for two wagons, and the only crossing in the area. It runs into the center of this city, through two octagonal towers.” She placed the two skulls at the end of the femurs and laid a forearm splinter across the crowns. “Behind the two outer towers is a courtyard, and then two more towers. There are three gates, one at each end and a gate of iron bars in the middle.”

Ribs were placed behind the skulls to mark the inner walls, and then shattered jawbones the gates.

“Most of the Immortals remaining in the city are in that bastion. Our work in the sewers tells us it has its own water gate, so unless the Roman army diverts or poisons the river, they’ll have plenty to drink. Doubtless there are food and arms as well. Inside the inner towers…” ? Another pair of skulls, these markedly smaller than the first, were placed to mark the final two towers.

“… is another open yard. Right now it gets used as the winter market and to hold caravans when they are assembling to go south. A fine use, but in this siege, it’s fifty feet of open pavement between the nearest building”-Thyatis moved Nikos’ boot over to demonstrate-“and the inside wall. The bridge has only a low retaining wall on either side, the plaza is wide open. Each is a fine place to die, skewered by a Persian arrow.”

She stood, sighing, and brushed her hands off on the long dark dress she had recently taken to wearing, along with the headdress and veil. Jusuf had finally had to appeal to Sahul to convince her that she had to hide her looks. The Persians were offering a heavy bag of royals for the heads of those responsible for the disappearance.

“The Roman army only has one option that I can see-to launch an assault across the river in boats or rafts and try to scale the walls in a rush. If they can seize the rest of the city, then they can bring up siege engines and hammer the bastion to rubble. We must be ready when that day comes. You have all said that you will fight Persia.“

There was a muttering of agreement. The harsh policies of the Boar had made him no friends, and since the Disappearance, the threat against the families of these men had faded. Thyatis had been listening to the Armenians while they talked at night, in the darkness, and knew that they counted Rome’s presence in these high and distant valleys to be brief, like a summer snow. If the Persians were driven out, they would be the kings of their own land again. She noted that Sahul and Jusuf listened too, and she wondered how the Khazars would like to trade their snowy lands in the north for more temperate valleys closer to the sun. But she said nothing; her mission was simple and straightforward.

“Well,” she continued, “we will see our fill of battle. My plan is this to split our men into two forces. One force, which friend Jusuf has volunteered to command, will hide close to the Dastevan, or northern, gate. When the Romans attack, he and his men will rush the gate even as the Romans reach it. With luck, Jusuf will be able to open the gate and the Romans can enter. The second, larger force, which I will command, will see about the southern bastion.”

Thyatis smiled in the gloom, her eyes bright in the light of the few flickering candles. “Friend Jusuf has expressed to me his concern about my chances of capturing the bastion. I will tell you, as I told him, that I have sworn to deliver the city to my Emperor, and I will.”

Nikos eyed her surreptitiously. His commander was growing very bold.

Full night was passing, stealing away into the west at the rumor of the sun. Two Persian soldiers, Immortals, in their gold and red cloaks, stood on the southeastern tower of the city wall. The river gurgled at the foot of the tower, wash ing against the stones. The land was still covered with darkness, but the air began to change a little with the hidden touch’t›f the rising sun. The older of the two soldiers, his head covered with a furry leather cap with long ear flaps, stared out into the darkness. The land around the city was desolate and swathed in midnight. His companion shuffled his feet, holding his hands out to the lantern that illuminated the wall below their post.

“Quit doing that,” said the older man, his voice muffled by the woolen scarf he had wrapped around his lower face. “You’ll ruin your night vision.”

“Huh. What is there to see out there? Nothing. Not even the light of a farm.”

The older soldier shook his head and returned to watching the river.

Almost invisibly, a chill mist rose, curling off of the water like steam, then climbing the banks. The older soldier, for all his vigilance, did not notice it until the first wisp obscured the lantern. Then he cursed, for the cold had grown worse. He turned away from the battlement and stomped across the icy flagstones of the rampart to the brazier filled with coals. His companion was already there, rubbing his hands over the little fire. They did not see the mist creep along the wall, rising higher and higher like a tide, until it spilled through the firing slits and embrasures of the battlement like pale water. The mist was heavy and where it drifted the sounds of night faded.

Zoe crouched in the bow of the skiff, her fighting staff laid in the bottom of the boat, peering out from under the sycamore branches that hung down almost to the water. The mist had thickened into a soupy fog, reducing vision to only a few strides. Eric and Dwyrin were at the back of the boat, their hands resting lightly on the poles that would drive the skiff across the river. Odenathus lay in the bottom of the boat, wrapped in woolen blankets and a mangy hide that Eric had stolen out of the tents of one of the Gothic auxillia.

He was breathing shallowly, though his eyes twitched back and forth. Zoe raised her right hand and clenched it into a fist.

Dwyrin and Eric picked up their poles and rose up into a crouching stance. The skiff rocked gently from side to side. Somewhere out in the darkness there was a signal and Zoe dropped her hand. The two boys dug the poles into the muddy bottom of the little inlet and the skiff, soundless, darted out into the river. They poled furiously, feeling tne bottom drop away unevenly under their poles. The skiff slid out over the water, turning first a little to the left and then to the right as they alternated strokes. In the bow, Zoe stood up,, her staff held crossways to her chest, her legs braced against either side of the little boat.

Dwyrin kept a weather eye ahead and slackened his stroke as the bottom vanished entirely. He kept the pole in the water long enough for the drag to keep them on course when Eric staggered, his strongly thrust pole finding nothing. Dwyrin grabbed the collar of his tunic in time to keep him from falling into the river. For all the imperfections that Zoe found in him, Dwyrin had grown up in fens and marshes. A boat like this was second nature to him. Eric, trembling from the effort, sat down in the back of the boat. Dwyrin remained standing as they slipped through walls of fog. Zoe looked back at one point and Dwyrin met her eyes with a smile.

She nodded and turned back to her watch. Utter quiet surrounded them as they drifted downstream in a universe of dark clouds and damp, clinging mist. Suddenly the skiff tipped a little to the side and began to crab. Dwyrin raised his pole, peering downstream into darkness. The water smoothed up into a curve in front of the skiff and Zoe caught sight of a standing wave. She struck out with her pole and caught the edge of the bridge piling.

Dwyrin saw it too, and he too pushed away with his staff. The skiff spun away from the looming brickwork. Their staves scraped across the mossy surface as each put his full strength behind the poles. The wave around the piling raised them up and then they shot down the other side. Dwyrin immediately turned to the other side of the skiff and dragged a heavy rope with a large bronze hook at the end out from under the rear seat. Eric ducked down and squeezed behind him to get out of the way. The current was running faster now, and to the right. Dwyrin felt a massive shape in front of him, and then the wall of the city appeared between parting veils of mist.

The Hibernian closed his eyes and felt perception jar around him as the flickering shape of the wall swam into view. There was very,little time, but he had proved to the centurion’s satisfaction that of the five, he could drop into the second entrance the fastest. His control was still very poor, but now they needed speed most. A shimmering ring of green and yellow blazed to his right and he hurled the hook with all his strength. In the front of the skiff, Zoe had dug her pole into the river bottom. The skiff rotated at the back end, around the fulcrum of the pole, and the back flank of the boat crunched into the wall.

Dwyrin’s hook clanged soundlessly into the ring and he whipped the rope around a stay in the back of the boat. Zoe felt the skiff shudder to a halt and grind up against the city wall. The current continued to press at the boat, driving it into the bricks. Eric and Dwyrin began hauling on the rope, and the skiff inched back against the river. Finally they reached the ring and the narrow walkway under it. Zoe pushed past both of them, her long braids piled on the top of her head, and clambered up the slippery stones onto the walkway. Eric handed up the blankets and two lumpy cotton bags. Dwyrin knelt in the bottom of the boat and slapped Odenathus gently on the cheeks.

The Palmyrene boy’s eyes flickered open and he groaned, the first audible sound since he had settled into his trance across the river.

“Quiet!” Dwyrin whispered, holding his hand over the boy’s mouth. “We’re right under the gate.” The Hibernian helped Odenathus to his feet and they managed to struggle up onto the walkway. Zoe and Eric had already disappeared. Dwyrin gave Odenathus a moment to catch his breath while he carefully unhooked the bronze grapnel from the ring. Sighing at the waste of a good boat, he lowered the hook into the water and then let the rope slip from his fingers. The skiff, no longer moored, grated on the wall once and then spun away on the current.

“Come on, let’s find the others.” Dwyrin breathed in Odenathus’ ear. The other boy nodded and stood up, his frozen hands tucked into his armpits. It was particularly cold down by the water. They crept off along the walkway. Dawn was less than an hour away.

Thyatis’ eyes opened, her mind clear and free of the confusion of sleep. She reached over and found Nikos’ ear by touch. Her pinch woke him, though he too remained quiet. Deep night was on the city, but something was happening. It seemed that the air itself had grown heavier. Thyatis rose and gathered up her sword and the long knife. She was already wearing a thick cotton doublet and leather leggings. Over this she had a shirt of iron scale mail that Bagratuni had excavated from some ancient hoard in the countryside. To complete it, he had found an ancient helmet with an iron strip along the top of the helm and flaring cheek protectors. She pulled this over her hair, her braids coiled into a cushion at the top of her head. The leather strap snugged tight on her chin. Beside her, Nikos had also risen and moved among the men, waking them quietly.

Thyatis climbed the steps out of the cellar and carefully pushed the door open into the ground floor of the shop they had taken over the day before. The shop was still deserted, all of the goods packed away. Piles of wooden ladders filled the space, leaving only an aisle between them, She glided to the front, where heavy shutters were closed and barred against thieves. A small spyhole was set into the center of the shutter, and she swung the little iron flap up from it and peered out. The southern square was empty and dark, but by the light of a single lantern hung from a stone wall where the main thoroughfare of the city emptied into the square, she saw that a heavy fog was filling the air.

There was a faint sound behind her, the clink of armor. She turned and Nikos was standing there. Men were filing into the room behind him.

“Fog,” she breathed. “We couldn’t be luckier. Send the word to the other shops. We attack as soon as everyone is in position.”

Nikos gripped her shoulder with a gloved hand.

“Are you sure?” His voice was faint and filled with worry. “We’ve had no word from outside…”

“Victory to the bold,” she said, her teeth white in the dim light. “It’s the hour before dawn and there’s a heavy fog. Regardless of what the Roman army does, we have a chance to capture the bastion by ourselves.”

The Illyrian regarded her for a moment more, then shook his head slightly and moved off to prepare the men. Thyatis turned back to the spyhole. Within the next ten grains, they would be ready. She felt a familiar thrill of expectation. Hundreds of men were preparing to move at her command, like a strong swift horse responding to her will. They would live or die upon the strength of her planning and courage. Her fingers curled around the wire-wrapped hilt of her sword, feeling the grooves worn by long use. Even the borrowed helmet felt right on her head.

Galen stood in the mist, his gilded armor shrouded by an even heavier cloak. A servant stood by him, holding his plumed helmet and sword. Around him he could hear the quiet movement of thousands of men. Just to his left, on the hard-packed mud of the road, a tortoise rolled up through the darkness, the squeak of its huge wooden wheels swallowed by the liberal application of all of the pig grease that Heraclius’ foragers could steal. He strained to see forward through the mist that swallowed the bridge. There was nothing there, only shades of black. He rubbed his nose, feeling a tide of apprehension rise in him. For a brief moment he wished that he were his brother Aurelian. Aurelian had never felt the slightest fear in battle or any concern for his own safety. He wondered how Maxian was faring, buried under scribe-work in the palace. Galen pushed thoughts of his brothers away. The river rolled past, silent in the fog.

Moisture beaded on the massive beams that formed the gate of the city. The fog licked against the^ black stones and water puddled on the pavement. Dwyrin and Zoe crouched at the base of the gate, a dull gray cloak thrown over them. Under the wool it was still bitterly chill, but their shared warmth made it a little more bearable. The Hibernian was on his hands and knees, concentrating on the join between the two halves of the gate. The left valve of the gate was faced with a nine-inch-wide strip of iron that overlapped the right-hand side. Zoe was holding the cloak up over them in a tent.

Dwyrin shuddered, feeling the vibration of the spells etched into the oaken panels, and breathed out slowly to settle his mind. He descended again into the second entrance, and then the third. Perception folded away from him like the leaves of some infinite flower, each layer revealing ten thousand other layers. The cold receded as he did so, and the gates rose up, glittering with hidden power. A complex geometry held them closed against an attacker, delicate traceries of power and form a hundred levels deep. The boy was stunned by the work that had gone into the defense. He quailed for a moment in the face of that complexity.

Zoe, who had also descended into the hidden world with him, though slower, whispered: “Ignore all that, look at the stones.”

He looked down, dragging his gaze away from the subtly shifting patterns of the gate. The heavy volcanic stones of the roadway and the gate were dull and inert, sullen black lozenges. No power crept through them like an infinite number of glowing worms. They were stolid and well worn by the passage of thousands of feet. Dwyrin’s concentration focused. His fingers dug at the cold stones, and his perception flowed into the pavement, seeking for even a tiny spark of fire.

At last, deep under the gate, in the foundation of the tower platform, he found it. A small thing, only a whisper of fire, trapped in a great slab of basalt that had been laid to form the base of the gate itself. His spirit hand wrapped around the little flame and his unseen breath blew on it. It dimmed and then flickered brighter. He drew on the power of the other stones, weak as it was, and slowly it burned hotter and hotter.

Zoe‘ shivered under the cloak. The cold from the river and the mist was creeping up her legs and thighs. The Hibernian was still in a trance, his fingers trembling on the pavement, working in the deep stones. She rolled back and forth from her left foot to her right, trying to keep some circulation in them. Dwyrin suddenly shuddered and looked up.

“Let’s go,” he croaked. Zoe pulled him upright, startled at the hot flush in his skin. She carefully folded the woolen cloak aside and pushed him down the walkway at the side of the gate. The boy stumbled ahead of her, his skin steaming in the cold air. Behind them, the stones under the gate made a popping sound.

The sound of hundreds of running feet echoed back from the dark wall that towered over the southern square. Thyatis jogged through the darkness, following the dim shapes of her men running in front of her. The first rank of men were carrying long ladders, scrounged from the city in the previous weeks, and the pylons that had so vexed Jusuf. The wall that rushed toward them was twenty feet high on the city side, and the ladders were a good thirty feet long. Their uppers were wrapped in wool or cotton or hides to deaden the sound of their slapping home on the rampart. The mist continued to hang around them, and the Roman woman realized, as she ran, that it was swallowing the sound of their mass rush across the square.

The lead men reached sight of the wall, only five or six strides ahe#d of them, and halted. The men behind continued forward, pushing the ladders above their heads while the lead men swung the base of the ladders to the ground and put their full weight on the bottom rungs. Thyatis slowed, raising her sword to signal the men behind her to slow as well. She heard them pause, and she slid the blade back into the sheath slung over her back.

The first ladder rose into the air and then swung over to land with a clatter on the embrasure at the top of the wall. Thyatis was already springing up it, her hands and feet on the rungs. She shinnied up the ladder like a monkey, but even before she reached the top, she heard the ringing of alarm bells within the citadel. She screamed in rage and hurled herself over the battlement.

“Roma Victrix!” She bellowed and the sword was in her hand in a rush. All along the wall, a hundred ladders clattered home and men were already swarming up them. The top of the wall was empty and she sprinted left, toward the nearest guard tower. There was a great commotion in the bastion as hundreds of voices were raised in alarm. Lights began to flicker on in the fog, casting strange shadows. Ahead of her, a door opened and she saw the shapes of men spill out.

The first Persian had only a spear, his armor forgotten in his rush to reach the wall. She whipped out of the fog, her sword a horizontal blur that hewed through his exposed neck in a spray of blood. He was still gasping for air, his hand raised to his oddly constricted throat, and she was past him. The spear clattered to the stones. The next man was in half-armor with an axe, and the men behind him had spears and shields. Thyatis felt a tremendous rage bubbling up inside her and as it crested, she howled and was among them, her blade a spinning wheel of destruction.

Her knife hand trapped the axe head swinging at her from the right and the sword in her left hand licked out, sliding between the Persian’s ribs. She kicked him away, the blade coming free with a popping sound, and spun into the next man. His spear stabbed at her, but she was past the point and the long knife was buried in his throat. Blood spewed and her hands grew slick with it. The edges of her vision faded to gray and the world around her seemed to slow. Her sword blurred overhead and the blocking spear of the man on the right split in half with a crack. A sword stabbed from the left and she twisted sideways, taking it on the scaled shirt, where it slid aside, sparking against the heavy iron leaves.

She hewed at the swordsman’s arm and the blade cut deep. He screamed, though the sound was very distant, like the clangor of arms behind her on the rampart or the howling that rose from the courtyard. She smashed the injured man in the nose with her forearm, bowling him over, and whirled to the right. The spearman had thrown his broken weapon away and dragged a dagger out of his girdle. He lunged and she caught his blade on the knife in her right hand. Her wrist flexed, twisting the dagger away, and she punched him, throwing him backward. The spearman’s foot slipped off the edge of the walkway and his other hand clawed at empty air for support. Thyatis grinned wildly through the blood streaking her face and snap-kicked him in the chest. He disappeared backward into the mist, his mouth a round O of surprise.

Time suddenly snapped back into focus and her awareness expanded to encompass everything around her. The bastion was alive with running men and blazing lights. Something had happened to drive the fog back, a stiff wind swirling off the main tower of the gate complex. Her men were still pouring over the wall, but now Persians in the courtyard below and in the other towers were filling the air with black arrows. Armenians clambering over the wall were pincushioned. A hundred feet away Nikos was firing back with his own bow. An arrow spanged off the wall next to Thyatis, and she dodged through the door the Persians had rushed out of.

The room was square and cluttered with the personal effects of the Persian soldiers. She overturned a table to block the far door and skidded to the top of a stairwell that led down into the tower. Some of her Bulgars reached the tower through the rain of arrows outside, panting with effort.

“Downstairs,” she snapped, pointing to the narrow circular staircase. “Clear the other floors so that we can get down into the courtyard.” They rushed past her, wolfish smiles on their faces. She stepped back into the doorway.

The rampart was littered with the bodies of the dead. Men continued to come over the wall, but.the Persian arrows were taking a heavy toll. Nikos had disappeared. She stepped farther out, desperate to see the positions of her men. She opened her mouth to shout for her second.

The sky to the south lit up, a terrific flare of white light that blew back the remaining tatters of fog and was followed, within an instant, by a blast of heated air and a tremendous thundering roar. Thyatis was knocked back against the outer wall, her arm flung up to shield her eyes.

At the end of the bridge, Galen paced among his guards. They loomed over him, hulking Germans in armor of iron rings sewn to a heavy leather backing. Below that they wore furs and sheepskins. Helms with cross-shaped eyeslits covered their heads, and their shields were heavy oblongs of wood faced with riveted leather. Galen was a slight figure among the Northerners, but no man moved save at his command. The last runners had reached him, bringing him word from along the banks of the river. All cohorts1 stood ready.

The silence, at first welcome, now seemed oppressive. The mist was beginning, almost imperceptibly, to lighten in the east. Galen felt the grains of time dropping one by one, crushing his plan. He raised his hand, and a man raised his bronze trumpet to his mouth. Galen stared into the mist. Nothing moved across the bridge. He sighed, preparing to order the attack.

A bell rang, dim and muffled in the fog. Galen started, his hand hanging in air. Another bell rang, and then there was a shrill of whistles and shouting men.

“We are discovered.” He groaned and motioned to the trumpeter. “Sound the attack!”

The trumpeter took a great breath and then sounded his horn. A clear ringing sound blared across the riverbank, cutting through the mist and its strange deadening effect. The trumpeter blew again and now other trumpets answered from the left and the right. Around the Emperor thousands of men were suddenly in motion. The Germans drew themselves tight around him, their shields interlocking to form a wall of sinew and wood. The tortoise creaked and then rumbled forward onto the bridge. Inside it a hundred men in heavy armor strained against the stanchions, pushing the massively heavy thing forward on its twelve wheels.

Archers ran past the hide-covered walls of the tortoise, their bows in hand and arrows at the ready. They sprinted across the bridge, looking up into the mist. The river echoed with the splashing of hundreds of boats and barges being rolled down the bank on logs. Men shouted as century after century scrambled onto the rafts and began poling them forward across the water. Boats and skiffs, gathered from the river and the marshes, scudded out between the rafts, packed with men.

Somewhere behind Galen and to his right, there was a sharp snapping sound as a siege engine released, its trunk-like pivot arm slapping up into a hide-covered rest. A thick sphere of mottled green glass whistled through the darkness to smash against one of the towers on the river side of the bastion. The tinkling sound of the impact reverberated through the darkness, and then there was a whoosh of flame and the tower lit up with incandescent phlogiston. Screams reached the Emperor’s ears then, as the guardsmen on the fighting platform jutting from the tower were wrapped in consuming fire. A lurid red-green glow stabbed through the murk.

The tortoise rumbled forward, legionnaires crowding onto the bridge behind it.

Galen stared into the murk, his nails digging into his palms until blood seeped around them.

Another glass sphere sailed overhead, unseen, but marked by the thrum of its flight.

There was a rush of wind from the bastion, and Galen covered his face as something howled past him, tearing away the veil of fog and mist that the Roman thaumaturges had raised to cover the preparations of the army on the near bank. Green light sputtered at the tops of the towers in the city, and suddenly the entire bridge and river were lit up. The river was black with men and boats and rafts, the first of which had only just managed to reach the far bank. From the battlements of the city there arose a great shout, and Galen could see that the walls were thronged with men. Arrows began to fall in a whispering rain onto the men packed into the boats below. Screams rose.

The second glass sphere burst on the battlement above the gate and blossomed into white-hot flame, clinging to the stones and hissing off the slate tiles that covered the towers. Persians wailed, writhing in flame, and plummeted into the river below. Along the battlement on the city side there was a red spark; a waterfall of red flame rushed down the side of the wall, spilling into a raft packed with Roman legionnaires below. The raft rocked as men rushed to leap from it into the water, but more were trapped by the bodies of their fellows and screamed horribly until the red flames filled their mouths and they fell silent.

Galen cursed, seeing the snarl of rafts on the river. The tortoise was too slow! It had not even reached the gates yet. He turned to order the retreat sounded on the bridge.

Something filled the world around him with blazing white light, and the Emperor felt himself slapped to the ground like a reed crushed under the foot of an ox. The Germans cried out in fear and then a massive boom, so loud as to fill the whole world with its sound, rushed over them on a hot wind. Galen was buried under the bodies of his guardsmen as they threw themselves down to protect him from whatever demon had raged into the world.

The stone walkway along the river rippled with the shock of the stones under the main gate rupturing in a blossom of white-hot flame. Zoe was hurled aside into Dwyrin, and the two of them fell into the river in a tangle of limbs. Eric, who had happened to be looking toward the gate when Dwyrin’s foundation stone erupted, was blinded by the flare of light and then spun around and thrown, afire, into the river. He wailed once as the dark waters closed over his head with a slap and then he was gone. Odenathus, who had been crouched at the very end of the walkway, felt a hot wind rush over him, and he clung tenaciously to the stones at his back.

The valves of the gate rose up in the air on a blast of white fire, torn from their hinges like impossibly large leaves. They tumbled over and over and then arrowed down into the river like giant axes, punching through the sides of two of the barges, spilling stunned Romans in heavy armor into the dark, crowded waters. The two towers on either side of the gate shook with the force of the blast but stood firm, though the men inside them were deafened by the shock of the sound. The inner courtyard behind the gate was filled with the shattered bodies of men wrapped in flame. The archers who had run forward to cover the advance of the tortoise were incinerated where they stood or smashed to the ground or thrown off the bridge into the river. The tortoise was blown back twenty feet, crushing the men inside to a pulp and then sliding another ten feet on the bloody grease that they made.

The men behind the tortoise were bowled over; many where killed or maimed. The gruff centurion, half blinded by a wood splinter that had spun out of the tortoise and slashed the side of his face open, staggered up out of the mass of tumbled men.

“Advance!” he bellowed and loped forward over the corpses of his friends. The cohorts of the Third Augusta picked themselves up behind him and rushed forward as well, though their hobnailed sandals slipped and skidded on the blood and bodies of the dead men. “Roma Victrix!” they shouted as they ran, a great basso roar.

Dwyrin struggled in the icy water. Darkness surged around him, the current dragging at his body with chill fingers. He clung to Zoe fiercely with his left arm wrapped around her midriff, while he kicked strongly and clawed at the water with his right arm. The river spun them around, and suddenly the darkness broke as Dwyrin’s head shot above the water. A red glare lit up the surface of the water, and Dwyrin could see the flanks of boats all around him. The bow of one rushed toward him from the left. The Hibernian kicked sideways, rolling onto his back and pulling Zoe onto his chest.

#His legs, filled out with muscle over the past weeks, kicked hard, pushing him through the water. The boat surged past, huge and black, with the pale faces of men staring over the side. Dwyrin gasped for air, nearly swamped by the wake. It passed and he continued to kick. He found the bank with his head, ramming into a stone in the shallows downstream from the walls of the city. He cried out in pain but did not let go of Zoe, who was a dead weight in his arms. Dwyrin staggered up, dragging her out of the river through a torn-up cluster of reeds. Around him the night was alive with the shouts of men, the red glow of the burning citadel, and running figures. More boats were piling up against the shore, and legionnaires were climbing out into the muddy shallows. He lay Zoe down once he found ground firm enough to hold her. She was not breathing. Dwyrin felt a chill.

He rolled her on her side, wrapped his arms around her abdomen, and squeezed hard. Her body twitched and water dribbled out of her mouth. He squeezed again and there was a burp of muddy water. Dwyrin‘, his motions quick, rolled her back over and tipped her head back. Fighting back tears, he leaned over her and breathed into her mouth. Soldiers ran past in the murk and centurjons bellowed, trying to organize their men. Zoe coughed, spewing water and bile into Dwyrin’s face. He wiped it out of his eyes and leaned back. The dark-haired girl coughed again and he rolled her over. She spit up more liquid but now she was breathing.

Dwyrin held her close, trying to warm her cold body with his. There was a rumbling sound from the city, and new flames shot up. In the ruddy light, Dwyrin could see lines of men trotting off through the brush toward the walls. Zoe trembled in his arms. Fire gleamed off of the water like a stain of living blood.