The Storm of Heaven (103 page)

Dagobert almost struck the young man, but then restrained himself with an effort of will. His father and grandfather would not have paused for an instant before throwing themselves into the thick of battle. Their worth as men depended on courage and bravery and their public expression. Part of the Frank yearned for violent release, but he was more Roman now than barbarian. "Very well. Merovech! Take command of these Sarmatians and strike! The rest of us will return to the center and see about these other Persians."

Turning his face from Sergius, Dagobert wheeled his horse, then galloped off, back behind the Roman lines. The other Franks glared at the Latin officer, but they followed. Merovech spurred his horse forward, waving his sword, and the Sarmatians began to trot towards the Persians, slowly picking up speed.

"Ready!" Khadames raised his hand again, feeling the weight of the heavy laminated armor on his arm. Once he had born it without qualm or effort, but the last two years had leached his body of its old strength. The cold mornings in this rainy land pained him. Even now he felt a remnant of that chill in his bones. His horse was walking forward, guided by the pressure of his knees. His
clibanarii
had spread out a little as they advanced in the wake of the Immortals. Now they were four lines of men, rather than a thick block nine deep. Grass, mud and the bodies of dead Romans and Persians passed by, littering the ground. "Draw!"

The
pushtigbahn
had torn a huge hole in the Roman line, helped by a withering arrow storm laid down by Khadames' horse archers. But their advance seemed to have stalled, swirling in a roar of battle around the glowing shape of a man standing on a low hill. Now a great force of Roman
auxillia
—Huns or Sarmatians by the looks of their armor and horse barding—was preparing to countercharge into the Immortals' flank. Khadames and his forces had begun the day hiding behind a screen of massed spearmen; now they were partly obscured by the dust kicked up from the melee. Too, they were the reserve behind the Immortals, hanging back, keeping out of the battle.

Two hundred yards away, the Roman horse began to wheel out, speeding up to a trot, their lances glittering in the sun. Khadames drew his own sword, a Damawand-forged blade that curved towards the tip, with a thick back and a single cutting edge. There was just enough time...

"Loose!" Eight thousand men released as one, their bows singing, and a black cloud leapt up, hung for a long, still moment in the air, and then plunged into the Sarmatians as they swept forward on the attack. Hundreds of men were knocked from their horses, the beasts pierced, screaming, thrashing on the ground. The momentum of the attack staggered, but then picked up to a gallop. "Loose!"

Shafts raked the flank of the charging Romans, pitching more men down. Khadames waved his sword in the air, letting it catch the sun. "Advance!" The Persian
clibanarii
stowed their bows in a smooth motion, sliding them down into the
gorytos
, then their horses were cantering forward, picking up speed. Khadames was in their midst, his horse rushing forward over the lumpy ground. Ahead, between the lurching bodies of his men, he could see the Sarmatians swinging out, away from the Immortals, to meet him. Their numbers were visibly depleted by the flights of arrows. Their lances dipped towards him, but the Persian charge was already at full speed, thundering across the field.

Khadames angled his sword forward, aiming at the enemy. On his left arm, a small round shield jogged as the horse picked up speed. A great cry suddenly sprang from the lips of the clibanarii. "Persia! Persia! Persia!" Then the diquans plowed into the Sarmatians with a ringing
clang
and everything dissolved into a furious swirling melee of men hacking and stabbing at one another. Khadames forced his horse forward, then jerked aside. The twelve-inch steel tip of a Sarmatian
kontos
cracked against his shield. Khadames hacked overhand, the weighted tip of his sword biting into the hard wooden shaft of the lance. The Sarmatian whipped it back, his horse ramming into the side of Khadames' mount. The Persian ducked and thrust, the tip of his sword ringing off the barbarian's scaled corselet.

Shouting, the Sarmatian discarded the broken lance. Grunting, Khadames forced his horse wither to wither with the barbarian's, hacking viciously at the man's head. Twice the Sarmatian's shield blocked the strokes, splintering, then Khadames powered through his guard. The sword bit into the man's neck, shearing through his gorget of boiled leather and then the man was falling away, blood sluicing from the blade in a thin stream.

The melee got bigger, spreading out from the impact of the charge as more Persians piled in, grinding the Sarmatians back. Khadames looked around for his bannermen, then caught sight of them a hundred feet away, swept away from him by the eddies and currents in the fight. He spurred his horse that way, fending off the spear-thrust of a Roman on foot. Everything was mixed up now. The general passed a single Persian soldier, his face bleeding from a cut, standing alone by his horse. No one was attacking the man, who was binding a length of cloth over his forehead, trying to keep the blood out of his eyes.

Khadames wheezed, exhausted. He wondered briefly if all of the time spent in the smoke and fumes of Damawand had stolen his breath.

Shining figures stormed across the glittering field, rising as they ran forward until they towered higher than the ramparts of the city. Dwyrin was vaguely aware of the giants, though his concentration was focused on shattering the last of the matrices that protected the Persian magi. The Eastern savants were fighting hard, their wills compressed to diamond brilliance as they struggled against the Hibernian. Fantastic creatures boiled up out of the earth—titans and dragons and horned men—hurling themselves against Dwyrin, battering at his orange-red shields, stooping over the heads of the mortal men struggling and fighting on the broad field.

The phantasms might have distracted Dwyrin a month ago, but now he could see through them, though they were marvelously complex. Far below the earth, stone and rock groaned and shifted, yielding slow mottled power to him. Despite the fierce eagerness flowing through him, Dwyrin was tiring. His physical body suffered as the strength in the spark of fire rushed out. The mental effort of giving so much power, shape, purpose and form was terribly wearing.

Luckily, there seemed to be only a few Persian savants arrayed against him, and those whose wills battled his seemed to lack skill. Briefly, he wondered what had happened to their great
mobeds
and
mobehedan
.
Where are the priests of their eternal fire? Dead,
he supposed,
already stricken down in this endless war.
Azure lightning raged against his shields, splintering the first shell of defense. Dwyrin mentally shook himself, returning his attention to the struggle.

The Persians tried to attack on multiple levels at once; some sent phantoms against his mind, others tried to bull their way through his ethereal defense, still more were working a pattern that would cut him off from the power inherent in the earth and the air. For an instant, he let them come, ceasing his attacks. They raged against him, brilliant lightning bursting around him, the patterns of earth and air and stone ruptured in their fury. Giants assailed him, lashing down with enormous spiked clubs; fanged mouths opened in the earth—all these things were seen only by his eyes. The
mobeds
were not wasting their strength by assailing him in the physical world.

His strength gathered, Dwyrin's will rode stealthily along the backwash of their lightning and bolts of fire. The violence of their attack distorted the hidden world, making perception difficult. He was sweating now, his body strained to the breaking point. A particularly vicious pattern smashed against his rotating spheres, sending glowing orange fragments in all directions. A bloody cut suddenly opened on his cheek, leaking clear fluid. Dwyrin flinched but did not let it distract him.
Just a moment more...

Heartened by the rupture of his defense, the magi redoubled their assault, lashing him with waves of carnelian and abyssal darkness. Another sphere shattered, leaving golden glyphs hanging in the air, then they were swept away. Dwyrin bent his head, enduring the attack. Each time that the Persians sent their power against him, a tenuous, flickering pattern linked him and they for the tiniest of instants. Each blow echoed back in a swirling infinitesimal cloud of reaction. His will flashed along the path, following the burning paths cut in the air.

Suddenly, like the sun breaking from behind a dark cloud heavy with rain, he was within the Persian ward, standing in their camp, looking down upon them, a dozen boys and beardless men shuddering and sweating in the shade of their tents. Persian soldiers in long coats of mail watched over them, bared swords in their hands.

Why,
he thought, looking upon them in horror,
they're only children!

Behind him, the pattern of their defense sparkled like wet pearl, but it had been rendered useless. Dwyrin said a prayer, calling upon Badb Catha, the black crow, to carry their souls to the western islands, where these children might drink deep of green mead and sing in joy, sitting among the ancient heroes. Then his hands struck, palm to palm, and the air rumbled and shook. On the ground, the bodies of the twelve Persians stiffened, a single thin cry escaped one throat, and then they were dead.

Dwyrin leapt back, shuddering, to find himself in his body, eyes open, staring up at the sun, tears streaming down his face. The bearded faces of Vladimir and the Faithful loomed over him, enormous and dark against the radiance of the sun.

"Lad!" Vladimir was shaking his shoulders. "You're alive?"

"Yes," Dwyrin croaked, terribly thirsty. "Is there any water?"

Trumpets pealed, cutting the dusty air with their bright metallic sound. Dagobert scowled furiously, urging his warhorse forward through the serried ranks of Eastern
cataphracts
. The horsemen astride their thick-bodied chargers waited at ease, helmets riding on their saddle bows, short beards gleaming with sweat. The Eastern troops parted before the Western
dux
, letting him and his staff thunder past. Much like their Persian adversaries, the Eastern horsemen were armored from toe to crown in overlapping lozenges of iron, with heavy curved bows slotted behind their four-cornered saddles. Long spears rode close to each hand, joined by a profusion of maces and heavy swords. On his left, the easterners bore dark blue shields, tabards and banners worked with gryphons. To his right, a flame-vermilion predominated and bore a rampant dragon.

"Prince Theodore! What are you doing?" Dagobert's calm had frayed enough to let long-held anger spill out. He did not wait for the Eastern lord to reply before stabbing his armored finger sharply back at the clangor and din of battle that raged along the Arab wall. "Your men are hard pressed!"

"
My
men?" Theodore's eyes narrowed at the sharp words, his face cold. "My men are here, obeying my command. Those legionaries there—I do not know who they serve, but I am not responsible for them."

"What? Are you mad?" Dagobert nudged his horse alongside the Eastern Prince's, reining over hard when the Frankish charger tried to nip the Eastern stallion. Despite the dustiness of the day, Theodore had managed to keep the glossy black hide of his mount sparkling clean. Further, the Prince and his staff were sitting a-horse, at ease, under a huge silk pavilion held up on five tall poles carried by servants. The opaque red silk allowed them to stay cool despite the sun high in the sky. "Your Twelfth Asiatica is getting ground to bits!"

Theodore shrugged, his gilded armor clinking gently at the movement. "As I said, barbarian, I do not command the Twelfth. Those men are mutinous, having marched out of the city without either my leave or command, following some trinket, some magicked-up picture of my esteemed noble brother. In fact, I am sure that
he
did not order them forth from the city, either!"

Dagobert shook his head, amazed and repulsed at the same time. "You'll not help them, then?"

"Why should I?" Bitter anger seeped into Theodore's words. "Their centurions swore to abide by my command not more than two days ago! Now they show themselves to be baseless, dishonorable men. Let them drink deep of treachery's wine... No. I shall wait and see their punishment; then—perhaps—I will take a hand in this, to save you from your folly."

"Will you?" Dagobert felt uncontrollable fury mounting in him, but he sagely suppressed the urge to strike the Eastern lord. "You would take the field of battle, then stand aside while your countrymen, your fellow soldiers, were slaughtered before you? Take care, Prince, for your actions verge on cowardice and treachery!"

Theodore laughed, surprising the Frank, then leaned close, dropping his voice. "Barbarian, you struck a poor bargain. Your army is committed to battle, your allies weak, your enemies strong. I know that you have been conniving with that black-eyed whore son, but I do not hold it against you. Your plan was clever, bringing forth the Emperor's standard. You knew I would have to come forth out of the city or lose the confidence of my men—but hear this, I do not have to fight."

Dagobert ground his fist against his armored thigh, metal squeaking on metal. "We are Romans, we must stand together, fight together, or the Persians will brush us aside like gnats. The city will be besieged! What will you have then? Nothing."

Theodore smoothed his close-clipped beard down, smiling. "I will be rid of many traitors, barbarian. The Persians are the gnats buzzing about the walls of my city. They have tried twice before to take Constantinople and they have failed. This will be the third time. I say, let them come and bleed themselves to death on her walls."

"Fool!" Dagobert's temper snapped. "They have a fleet, you will be blockaded and starved out! We
must
defeat them in the field, then smash the remnants and drive off their ships. You must order your men into battle, restoring this flank and turning the Persian right wing."