The Gate of Fire (45 page)

C'hu-lo looked up, tearing his eyes from the dagger that lay so heavy in his hand. The fury he had struggled for so long to contain was close, close to the surface. It threatened to break free, but he held it back and struggled to force it back into the dark places in the back of his mind.

"What have you lost, thing-in-the-shape-of-a-man? What do you know of dishonor?"

"I know this," Dahak said as he paced back to the table. "I am a man, though I have made a dreadful bargain. My throne has been stolen from me, even as yours has. My brother murdered, my family scattered. All that is mine by right of birth, denied me. But I will not slink away into the darkness, I will fight and I will win. Even as you will. We will both win, and laugh to see our enemies dragged before us in chains."

"What throne..." C'hu-lo stopped, coughing, and cleared his throat. "What throne was yours?"

"My true name," Dahak said, and his face changed subtly, his eyes becoming brown and his skin lightening ever so faintly, the ridges along his skull shrinking, "is Rustam Aparvez. My father was the King of Kings, Hormizd the Fourth. I am the younger brother, now the heir, of the great King Chrosoes, called the Second. Now that he and his son lie dead, I am the last of that line. But I will ascend the Peacock Throne again, and I will rule Persia, even as did my fathers. Even as you will once again rule the T'u-chüeh."

C'hu-lo felt a shock run through him, and he knew—suddenly and completely—that this was the truth. The corpse-eater, the
lich
, the grave-walker that stood before him with those damnable yellow eyes was in truth a king. The Hun stood, his legs still shaky from the shock of seeing the grave-gift of his old friend, and he inclined his head to the dark man.

"I will stand by your side, Persian King, if you will stand by mine. We shall be restored, and our kingdoms whole again."

"Yes," Dahak said, his face serene in victory. "And doom to all our enemies."

Against the wall, the man Arad remained, quiet and still, unable to move. His eyes, though, were filled with pain, though he could not cry out.

Kurad, captain of the eastern gate, stood, shading his eyes with his hand. Shouts and the sound of horns had risen from the ranks of the Mekkan besiegers. On the barren plain before the wall, he could see spearmen running from their tents, out on the siege line. He squinted, wishing for younger eyes.

A band of horsemen stormed down out of the dun-colored hills behind the line of the
wadi
. Fifty or more, riding hard. The Mekkan camps were stirring as the sound of the alarm spread. Men ran to horses, or jogged out from the shade of their tents, spears or bows in their hands, angling to intercept the hard-riding horsemen.

"Captain, what is it?"

Kurad looked aside, seeing the clan-lord Al'Jayan come up at his side.

"I do not know, my lord. A troop of horsemen are trying to ride through the Mekkan lines."

Al'Jayan shaded his brow as well, peering out with his dark eyes over the tumbled rocks and scattered fields that lay between the gray-green walls of the city and the palms and scrubby trees that lined the
wadi
.

"Who can it be? All our clansmen are within the walls."

Kurad pursed his lips, thinking over the roster of the Bani-Hashim exiles and their cousins who ruled this city—the second-largest metropolis of Arabia Felix. He could think of no one who was not accounted for.

"I know not, Lord—" He stopped. Al'Jayan had suddenly leapt up onto the battlement, waving his hands, shouting.

"Al'Aws! Al'Aws—here, here is sanctuary!"

Kurad cursed, taking the name of Hubal in vain, and leaned out from the battlement himself. The band of riders, still coming on hard, had burst through the scattered lines of the Mekkans. Now they thundered closer, and he could—at last—make out what the younger eyes of Al'Jayan had already discerned: The lead man, a young man by his bearing and the speed with which he drove his horse recklessly across the stone-littered fields, held the banner of the clan of Aws at his side. Kurad squinted, making out the streaming red and green
Kaffiyeh
and he cursed again and leapt down the steps to the gatehouse in haste, taking them three and four at a time.

The arrival of the Al'Aws was unexpected and unlooked for, but Kurad had crossed blades with the young bandit more than once in the internecine strife that had plagued the city. Only in the last year had the Khazar clans driven out the Aws and their adherents, in great part with the assistance of the Bani-Hashim from the south. Still, the Aws held no love for Mekkah, and the heart of the fiery young chief was true to this city of his birth. Kurad hustled into the dim recess of the gatehouse.

"Up lads! Up! A band of horse are coming—friends of the city—prepare to let them in!"

The Yathribi
militia
boiled out of the cool shade like ants from a broken hill and swarmed about the great wooden doors that held the eastern gate closed. Kurad shouted above the din, and used his boot and fists to get them in order. A great bar of oak, shipped down years before from Phoenicia, held the gate, and now fifteen men struggled to lift it from its iron hooks.

On the wall above, the young Lord Al'Jayan continued to howl encouragement at the riders, who must be coming close now.

Fifteen men removed the bar and staggered aside, faces pinched with pain at the weight of it. Others, their spears and swords a bright thicket, dragged at the gate. It stuck, grinding across the stones and gravel of the gateway. Kurad, his saber out and ready, pushed through them, his eyes on the slowly widening slot between the gates.

Dust billowed up behind the Aws as they thundered ahead, horses running flat out for the safety of the gate. Behind them, the Mekkans surged forward, their arrows arcing high into the air. As Kurad watched, men fell, stricken from their saddles by the Mekkan archers. Bands of spearmen ran in pursuit, howling their southern war cries. Too, the horsemen from the Mekkan camps south of the city had to hove into view, though they were far away and too late to catch the Aws and their brash young lord before he reached the gate.

The gate swung wide, and Kurad put his shoulder to it, shouting commands at his men.

"When they are through, fill the gate with steel," he shouted, "and close it quickly! The Mekkans are hard on their heels."

He looked up, seeing the Aws horsemen loom large, their mounts streaked with sweat, their heads low, close to the reins, speeding like the wind. Behind them it seemed that the whole army of the Mekkans was in pursuit, covering the fields with lines of running men. Their distant war cry rose and rose, echoing back from the towering walls of the city.

Ah-la-la-la-la-la!
The Aws rode on; the hooves of their horses striking sparks from the scattered stone and gravel of the road that led to the eastern gate.

Kurad leapt aside, his face creased by a wild grin as the first of the Aws—the brave young man in chieftain's robes, still carrying the bright banner of his house—thundered into the gate and spun his horse, its head turning and rearing, to get out of the way of his fellows. Sweat spattered from its flanks.

The Aws streamed in through the gate, a river of men and horse, green and red, with bright steel in their hands. Kurad leapt to seize the bridle of the rearing horse, his voice raised in welcome.

"Welcome, Lord of the Aws! Well met indeed!"

Lord of the Aws looked down, his eyes bright over the tan drape of his desert scarf. "So it is, man of the city. We are well met."

Kurad paused, his hand tight on the bridle. The man looking down at him had dark eyes the color of well-steeped tea, that and the edge of a scar along his right eye. Lord Al'Aws—his eyes were light, almost the color of the stones of the mountains... Kurad shuddered, feeling the steel-bright saber of the stranger punch through his larynx. Blood flooded his mouth, and he tried to shout, to raise the alarm. He made a gobbling sound and slumped forward, dragging the head of the horse down.

Khalid al'Walid cut again with his saber, severing the hand tangled in his reins at the wrist. Around him the screams of dying men rose up, filling the air with a cacophony of angry shouts and the ring of steel on steel. His men swarmed through the gate, hewing down the Yathribi
militia
, driving the defenders back into the streets of the city.

"Wedge the gate," he shouted at Patik as the Persian, his armor soaked with blood, emerged from the door of the gatehouse. The stolid Persian was the very devil at close quarters' work in his heavy interlocking suit of mail. He bore a dripping mace in one hand, and a short sword in the other. The soldier raised his head and nodded his understanding. Khalid turned, his quick eyes scanning the rampart and the rooftops. Yathribi soldiers were running toward the gatehouse along the top of the wall.

"With me," he called to a band of his men just come through the gate. "We must secure the wall." With that he swung down off his horse and bounded up the steps to the rampart, his saber gleaming with blood in his hand. At the top he ducked under the spear thrust of the first militiaman and hacked at the man's arm. Blood gelled around his blade, and the man screamed. Khalid tore the blade away and shoved the Yathribi back, into the next spearman. That fellow ducked aside and thrust hard at Khalid. The
sheykh
weaved aside and then slipped on the wear-polished stones, sliding in the blood and bile spilling from the first man. He went down hard, the man dying on the rampart clubbed him with a bloody fist.

Khalid tried to squirm aside, seeing the spearman raise his leaf-bladed weapon in both hands to plunge into the Arab's belly. The dying militiaman hit him again, making sparks fly across his vision. Khalid twisted hard, snatching at the fallen man's arm. The spear flashed down and plunged deep into the shoulder of the man as Khalid dragged him across his body. Something cold touched Khalid's chest, and then his own men surged along the battlement, their bows snapping in the hot air. The spearman turned to run and took two arrows in the back, toppling with a wail from the rampart into the street below.

Khalid shoved the body of the fallen man off his chest. The spear had dug into his mailed armor, the thin tip wedging into the center of one of the round links. Khalid let out a shuddering breath and stood, retrieving his saber. Fighting continued on the rampart, and in the city the sounds of battle were growing. The first column of Mekkan infantry—spears and shields raised high—jogged through the gate below him. He smiled, suddenly feeling the blood-fire wash over him. He jumped up and down, crying out in joy.

"What is this atrocity?" Mohammed's voice rumbled through the square as he swung down from his horse. At his back, Jalal and Shadin remained ahorse, their dark eyes surveying the men milling in the plaza. Each of the Tanukh carried a bow at their saddle horn, an arrow ready at the string. While their chieftain stormed through the knot of men clustered at the entrance to the Temple of Hubal, they kept a weather eye on the rooftops and archways. More than one victorious general had found his prize a poisoned well. A wedge of Tanukh followed Mohammed, though, keeping close to his back.

In the foyer of the temple, Mohammed strode up the steps and came to a halt, his eyes filled with tremendous anger. Two of his allied clan-lords—Mekkan Quraysh, by their
kaffiyeh
and the cording on their armor—were shouting at a cluster of kneeling captives. Long knives were in their hands, one already dripping with blood. Between the Mekkans and their intended victims, the youth Al'Walid was half crouched with his saber raised in guard. The temple was lit by many torches of pitch, and their guttering light shimmered in the surface of his blade like a setting sun.

"What goes here?" Three heads snapped around at the sound of Mohammed's voice, and he stepped into their midst. "Who gave the order to kill these prisoners?"

The Mekkan with the gore-stained blade—a fellow Mohammed dimly recognized as being one of his cousins—stepped forward, his black beard bristling and his eyes filled with hatred. At his back, Mohammed felt the whisper of air as the Tanukh spread out, covering the doorways of the temple and the great apse of the sanctuary of Hubal itself.

"I did, Lord Mohammed. These are the kin-slayers who fled from Mekkah—we caught them hiding in the cellar of this temple. They owe us—and you, Lord—blood in plenty. This man"—he kicked the corpse on the floor—"he burned the house of my father and killed a dozen of my servants. I am owed blood-debt!"

Mohammed surveyed the scene, seeing the bloody and battered faces of the captives, their fear, the wounds they had already suffered. The brash youth, Al'Walid, caught his eye and made a show of resheathing his blade, though he took a moment to wipe old dried blood from the edge. Mohammed nodded at him absently before turning back to the Hashim captains.

"In the eyes of Allah, the great and merciful, we are all children and brothers. I gave orders that all captives were to be spared. There will be an amnesty, and many will be paroled if they accept my rule and follow my law."

Mohammed stepped in close, looming over the slightly shorter man. The Quraysh lord matched Mohammed's gaze with a steely glare of his own.

"We are owed blood recompense for our loss," the man snarled, his sword still bare in his hand.

Mohammed nodded gravely, never taking his eyes from the Quraysh.

"Murderers will be punished, but they will be judged by the law, and the great and good god will look to their punishment. Are you the Lord of the World, that you will take his justice into your hands?"

More Tanukh, and others, crowded into the temple. There was an angry muttering when the men saw that the kin-slayers had been brought to bay. The Quraysh captain, seeing something terrible growing in Mohammed's eyes, suddenly backed away and bowed his head.

"Those who follow the law," Mohammed said, turning, his voice rising to fill the great hall, "will be rewarded by the blessings both of man and God. No captive will be slain out of hand, no man put to death without a trial before a judge. This is the
shari'a
—the law—and all will follow it."