The Gate of Fire (78 page)

Sextus shrugged, saying "well, sir, I suppose we can swan about on horses with the best of them."

"Good," muttered Nicholas, gathering up his papers. "We leave in the morning."

It got worse, as far as Nicholas could see, the farther inland you went. Barren dry hills rose upon either side of the road and the bottomland wasn't much greener. Even the olives and junipers were stunted and the air had a funny brittle quality to it. All the villages seemed to be crouched on hilltops and were mean places with reclusive citizens, stout walls, and an angry feeling in the air. Nicholas' heart sank the higher they went into the hills. The only birds seemed to be crows and buzzards.

"This has all the signs of a badly managed province," he muttered to Vladimir, who was riding at his side, wrapped in a white-and-tan striped cloak and a sun hat. The Walach grunted in agreement, keeping his hands inside his cloak. Vladimir's pale skin had started to burn on the voyage from Constantinople and now he was peeling and in a particularly bad mood. "This may take some doing."

Nicholas wheeled his bay mare around and dropped back to allow the first engineer's wagon to catch up with him. He and Vladimir had been in the lead, a dozen paces ahead of the first wagon, with the surveyors out in front of them as scouts. The rest of Sextus' apprentices and the semaphore men made the rear guard. In his usual good humor, Sextus grinned at the centurion as he came alongside. Despite his fear that the engineer's wagons would slow him down, Nicholas was impressed by the conveyance.

The
reda
was a four-wheeled box with high hinged sides and an elevated riding seat for a driver and passenger. A long wooden tongue ran out to harness four fast-stepping mules. The wheel rims were of a standard size and covered with layers of heavy canvas, which seemed to reduce the noise and rattle that wagons usually generated. Nicholas had inspected the wagons before they had left the Legion camp at the port. They were impressive; carefully packed full of all the materials and tools that the engineers would need in their work. Spades, picks, mauls, adzes, axes large and small, chisels, precut support timbers, five big
dioptra
for taking sightings and finding levels, broken-down leveling tables called
chorobates
, metal fittings for ballista and onagers, water screws, and barrels and barrels of nails and precut wooden pegs. Each man had his own kit, too, in addition to the light leather armor cuirass of a
Legion auxillia
; a saw, a heavy hand-hammer, a plane, and a hand-held water level as well as plumb bobs and a
groma
for finding straight lines and right angles. The stonemasons had a whole other set of gear in their wagons, too, all designed for finding, cutting, moving, finishing, and cementing stone. Each wagon had its own packing order, which had really impressed Nicholas—used, as he was, to the lax logistical methods of the Scandian tribes or the Eastern Empire—which was tracked by square-cut leather tags tied to each piece of equipment.

Finally, a high-hooped frame of laminated wood covered the wagon. A leather shade was lashed to this, which left a covered space on top of the equipment for the men to sleep in while they rode along. Sextus'
reda
, as it was the lead surveyor's wagon, was also equipped with a measuring device that dropped stones into a tin bucket, measuring the passage of the miles as the wagon rolled along. If his task had been to build a new road or repair just about anything in the world, Nicholas would have been a happy man.

As it was, he felt obscurely depressed as he rode along beside the wagon.

"While you were waiting at the port, did you hear anything about why these bandits are running wild?"

Sextus leaned back against the padded seat of the wagon and nodded his head. He looked a little sad.

"Surely, Centurion. This province has been a spot of trouble for centuries. It's always been a hotbed of religious fanatics, madmen, separatists, reckless builders, and outlawed cults. The senior
optio
at the port let me in on a little of it—the entire province of Judea has risen up in full-scale revolt against the Empire twice—on the second time the native population was deported en masse and scattered throughout the Empire. Those were religious troubles, over sacred sites at this place we're going. They didn't ken much to the Capitoline Triad, I guess."

Nicholas nodded—the Empire did not take recurring trouble lightly. Threats to the divinity of the Emperor and the gods of Rome were treated harshly.

"And today?" he asked, twitching the reins to keep his horse moving. "What gripes them now?"

Sextus smiled grimly. He scratched the side of his nose and looked the centurion up and down.

"Well, sir, seeing as how you're an Eastern officer, I should be politic. But you seem a right fellow, so... the big trouble here is taxes, like it always is. It's a poor province and really not worth that much. All the riches are across the river in Nabatea or the Decapolis, where the trade runs up from the Sinus Arabicus to Damascus. A few weeks ago the word went out that Emperor Heraclius had called for a fresh census, which means, of course..."

"That taxes will go up," finished Nicholas sourly. That was surely the way of the world. He looked around, seeing the barren hills and the scattered scrawny flocks of sheep, the dry watercourses and the pitiful gardens, the poor villages. New taxes would go down hard here, he thought. This was a land with very little margin in it. If there was already resentment from past grievances, a few hotheads could make a lot of trouble.

"Sir!" Dwyrin spurred his horse up. The thaumaturge had been placed in the middle of the caravan with an escort of burly stonecutters to back him up. The boy looked alert and wary. "I feel something in the aether, may be trouble ahead."

Nicholas nodded sharply—the storm lords of the Dannmark could smell ambuscade in the air, too.

"Pass the word to stand ready," he rapped at Sextus and the stonemasons, then he turned and rode back to the point. Vladimir had perked up too and was sniffing the air.

"Yes," said Nicholas in a low voice as he cantered alongside, "time to earn your pay."

Vladimir's teeth flashed in the shade of his broad-brimmed hat. "Time for lunch, you mean."

Nicholas made a shushing motion and grimaced. It might be true for the Walach, but this was not the time or place to discuss it. Vlad's sense of humor tended to the grisly.

Dwyrin came up behind Vlad and Nicholas, guiding his pony with his knees. He had picked it out because it liked to stand around thinking and not move much. He wrapped the bridle around his wrist and cleared his thoughts, calling forth the words of the meditations that would open his mind to the hidden world. Ahead of him, the two older men drew their swords quietly and continued riding, watching the steep hillsides with a wary eye. The pony ambled along. The road turned, running under a crumbling cliff of cracked pale gray limestone. At some time in the past, a smooth-faced cut had been made in the side of the hill. Most of that had tumbled away, but the way narrowed sharply in the turn. Dwyrin let his senses expand, seeing the invisible currents in the air and the chuckling green flow of water deep under the dry streambed. Threat was waiting in the air. Beyond the curve of the hill he could feel the burning orange flicker of men crouched among the rocks.

The surveyors in the lead turned the corner and Nicholas and Vladimir spurred their horses, galloping around after them. Dwyrin let the pony follow and dug his will into rock and stone, drawing forth a stream of power. Distantly, he heard a sudden shout and then men howling war cries. The red figures gleamed in his sight, charging down the hill. Others rose up, sending arrows and javelins into the air in a cloud.

Dwyrin raised a hand, mouthing the mnemonics of a wind-ward that Zoë had taught him. It seemed to come so slowly! He stumbled among the intricacies of the pattern and a gusty breeze rushed through the canyon. Dust and grit spun up into the eyes of the men rushing downslope toward the wagons. The arrows and javelins he had tried to slap aside fell undeterred among the Romans. One of the surveyor's apprentices in the van cried out in pain as a wooden shaft sank into his leg. His horse bucked, pricked by the metal tip, and he was thrown off, screaming. The bandits rushed onto the road and Nicholas and Vladimir were among them, blades out and flashing in the sun.

Dwyrin cursed, feeling embarrassment and panic war in him. The slope was aboil with men, over two hundred of them, rushing down with spears and small round shields. More had appeared on the road ahead, running forward with a shout. Nicholas was a whirlwind of brilliant white light—the thing that lived in his blade was shrieking with joy in the hidden world—and two men went down. The Hibernian cursed at himself. Since parting from Blanco he had not practiced the forms and patterns and he was very rusty. In a moment, though, the caravan would be overrun. He folded thought into himself, digging down for the pure hot spark of power that he remembered from the siege of Tauris.

Nicholas slammed the pommel of
Brunhilde
down on a bandit's face as the man grabbed at his reins. Bone crunched and blood smeared the side of the man's head as he went down. The mare shied from two spearmen, but Nicholas wrenched her around, dancing between the thrusts, and
Brunhilde
licked out and slid sideways between the bearded one's ribs. Bright red blood welled around the wound and Nicholas ran the falling man over. He could hear Vladimir screaming a high-pitched war cry like the shriek of a hunting cat. Nicholas parried another spearman and swung the mare around hard. He followed with
Brunhilde
and the steel blade sheared through the next bandit's shield and arm like a carving knife in a hot lamb roast.

A heavy javelin thudded into the ground only inches from the horse's hooves and she skipped aside.

Screams and shouts rose up all around amid the din of iron on iron. The stonemasons had dismounted and were fighting on foot, their rectangular shields close together. The surveyors had fallen back onto their position. Nicholas could hear the rattle of fighting from farther back along the line of the wagons. He had not expected so many bandits! Another man rushed him with sword and a heavy square shield. Nicholas' eyes widened in surprise, seeing that the fellow had a Legion issue
spatha
and
scutum
. One corner of the painted leather facing on the shield had torn off, showing the crossed plywood slats behind it. He knew how to use the long straight blade too, and Nicholas fended off two hard stabs at the mare's legs. The man reversed his stance, blocking with the shield and dodged toward the back of the horse.

Nicholas spun the horse in place, his left leg kicking out and caught the man behind the ear with the tip of his boot. The iron studs in the shoe raked the man's skin, tearing a bloody strip. The fellow cried out and made a wild slash. Nicholas leaned under it and stabbed down, feeling
Brunhilde's
triangular tip punch through the clavicle and then tear out his throat. Blood fountained, spattering in the mare's eyes. The horse reared and Nicholas fought to stay in the saddle.

Arrows whistled past Dwyrin's head and one tangled in his cloak. He did not notice, for the bright shuddering spark in his heart had roared to life.
This
, he rejoiced,
is easy
! The fire calling had always been a quick summoning for him, not like the complicated battle wards and strategies of the thaumaturges. Each working had some kind of gradient associated with it and those patterns that drew from the glyph of fire were smooth and effortless. He unfolded his hands and let the flames that lapped around him in the hidden world find release.

Nicholas fell hard on the ground, cracking his shoulder against the stones of the road. By a miracle he managed to hold onto
Brunhilde
and he tried to get up. The nearest bandit ducked around the mare and stabbed at him as he rolled on the ground. One spear caught his side and pinned the edge of his mail shirt into a crevice between two paving stones. He tugged at it, trying to get some leverage, but he had to keep the steel sword between him and the bandit.

The man, his head wrapped in a blue headdress, laughed aloud to see him stuck like a sheep in the pen. He wrenched his spear from between the stones, sunlight flaring off the triangular iron head and the polished faces of the point. Nicholas blanched at the sight, seeing his own death in it.

Flame filled the sky, roaring like the mouth of a furnace a mile tall. A stabbing bolt of shuddering blue enveloped the bandit's head. The man's shriek of horror ended abruptly as the air in his lungs combusted. Nicholas threw up his hand and cried out himself, seeing the man's burnoose char to white ash and his skin shrivel and crisp away from his skull. Still burning furiously, the man toppled over, the iron of the spear point flashing into the air as red-hot globules that spattered on the dust. Nicholas scrabbled away in the dirt, feeling the heat in the sky beat at him. Men were screaming in an odd high-pitched wail all around him. He looked up, squinting into the actinic glare.

Dwyrin was still astride his pony, but the poor creature was trembling from nose to tail, shaking like a reed bank in a high wind. The boy was surrounded by a corona of fire and his mouth was open, shouting words that Nicholas could not hear over the shriek of flame. Bolts of fire winged from the boy's hands, scattering the bandits, shattering rock and stone where they struck. Dozens of the attackers were down, their bodies wrapped in white-hot flame. A few arrows still sliced the air, but most burned away in flight. The legionnaires, showing quite good sense, had thrown themselves to earth after the first sky-ripping blast. The stonemasons had dragged their shields over their heads. The surveyors were huddled under the wagons.

Dry grass on the hillside ignited, sending up a tall column of black smoke. The tamarisk and stunted olive and dry oak in the stream bottom was burning merrily too, clouding the road with drifts of bitter white fog. The last of the bandits fell, struck down by burning motes that flickered through the air to bury themselves in their victims. The men thrashed and sobbed on the ground, then burst into flame and were consumed in an instant.