The Storm of Heaven (104 page)

"Must I?" Theodore rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. "Persuade me."

Dagobert heard a great rushing sound in his ears. He cast around, staring wildly at the long rows of Eastern
cataphracts
, at the small band of his own men, at the battle raging along the Arab wall. A great pall of dust spiraled up from the melee, broken by gusts of arrows flickering through the air. The Romans were falling back, fighting hard, anchored on the tight knot of red-cloaked guardsmen and the gleaming icon of the Emperor. The portrait was riddled with arrows, some of which were burning, adding trails of white smoke to the fume in the air. The Frank turned back to the Eastern Prince, who was watching him and grinning.

"What... do... you... want?" Dagobert could barely make himself say the words. He felt dizzy, unable to grasp the incredible arrogance of the man. Who bartered for pigs on the battlefield? Where was this Eastern whelp's honor?

"My brother is very sick." Theodore straightened up, a sad look on his face. "He is not well enough to rule. His son, young Constantius, would make a fine emperor. Of course, he is not quite of his majority yet. He will need a regent."

Dagobert stared at the man's face, seeing the smile, the gleaming white teeth, the feral amusement dancing in his eyes. "That is monstrous."

"It is necessary!" Theodore snapped in a commanding voice. "The state is crippled. I will take command of these legions and crush the Persian wing. You and your master, the oh-so-noble Galen, Emperor of the West, will support me in placing Constantius on the throne under my regency for the next two years. Once this battle is done, you will also follow
my
command while we kennel these Persians and their Arab dogs."

"And your brother? What of him?" Dagobert felt a sickening gulf open under him.

"Our traditions hold," Theodore said in an offhand way, "a crippled man cannot be emperor. I am sure, after such a long sickness—my poor brother has lost a hand, a nose, some vital parts—he will be retired and can live out the rest of his unfortunately disease-ridden life on some quiet island, with his
wife
."

The Frank recoiled from the undisguised venom in the Prince's voice.
What do I do?
Dagobert cocked an ear, hearing the roar and clash of arms behind him. The Persians were pressing very hard against the Romans. Without the support of Theodore's heavy cavalry, the line might break, forcing the Romans away from the city and opening their right flank.

"Very well," Dagobert said, his heart sick. His face contorted, then settled into a frigid mask. "Constantius will be Emperor, and you his regent."

"Very wise." Theodore smiled genially. Then he raised his hand. For a hundred yards in every direction, thousands of armored men lifted their heads, seeing the signal flags rise up, echoing the Prince's motion. "Advance!"

Dagobert wheeled his horse away, cutting across the line of march. The Eastern
cataphracts
surged past, the earth rumbling with the trot of their horses. The Frank felt ill, but he had his own business to attend to.

Jusuf shaded his brown eyes with a hand, perplexed. "What
are
they doing now?"

Out on the plain, the regular blocks of the Roman line were shifting. The four Western Legions had advanced abreast across the irregular fields, then stopped. The main body of the Persians had matched their motion, leaving the two armies only a hundred feet or so apart. Clouds of arrows, sling-stones and javelins arched back and forth. Now—much to Jusuf's consternation—the Romans were angling away from the Khazar position, falling back on their right.

Dahvos, sitting astride his horse a few yards away, shrugged his shoulders, making his armor creak. "Their right wing must be falling back. Messenger!"

One of the courier riders scrambled up onto the crest of the hill. Both Khazars, as well as the coterie of staff and guardsmen that followed them, were standing on the eastern end of a low hill. The Khazar lines stretched off to their left, mostly arrayed across the slope and in the shallow valley between the Roman lines and the Arab position on the hill opposite. Down in the valley, there was a darting, swirling engagement between the Khazar light horse and their Arab counterparts. The main bodies of both armies remained in reserve, crouched on their respective hills. The Arabs seemed to have fielded a large army of heavily armored infantry, which stood in four deep ranks on the opposing slope, amid old fieldstone walls and abandoned vineyards. Their archers and slingers were busy sniping at the Khazar horse in the valley, or exchanging shots with the Khazar archers at the base of the hill.

"Lad, go find the Roman legate in command of the Tenth down there and find out what is going on." The courier dashed off, though he was not the first to speed between the two allied forces. Communication between the allies was poor. How many Romans spoke Turkish? How many Khazars could hold forth in Latin?

Dahvos bit his lip, eyeing the battle slowly unfolding before him. From this height, the scene took on a surreal quality, as if he were looking down from the heavens. Men were dying in droves down there, but here—in the slightly cooler breeze, among the softly rustling olive trees—there was a sensation of peace. "The Persians must be hammering the right, trying to break through to the road."

Jusuf nodded. "We shouldn't be here."

Dahvos sighed in agreement. Initially, putting the Khazar army on the left—all horsemen—had seemed like an excellent idea.
Put that down to bad scouting,
he thought ruefully. The Arabs crouched on the opposite hill had shown the fallacy of that. Dahvos was not willing to send his men across the soft ground in the shallow valley, then up a hill against massed infantry. "Truth. This is an infantry position. We're not going to be turning this flank."

"Your orders,
khagan
?" Jusuf smiled gently at his half-brother. "Do you want to try pushing the Arabs off their hill?"

"No!" Dahvos shook his head violently, pointing with his chin. "Not with half their line behind a stone wall and uphill, I won't."

"We could dismount our heavy horse, then strike down this slope on foot and into the Persian flank. The rest of the
umens
could cover the advance with archery." Jusuf motioned down the rolling slope below them. There were low walls here, too, the remains of old farms and houses, then the flats and the Roman line. Dahvos tapped his teeth with a thumb.

"No, we won't do that either. If we leave the hill our flank is exposed and we lose mobility. Jusuf, take all of the heavy horse back through the orchards, onto the road, and swing behind the Tenth Fretensis. Then the Legion can cover your flanks and you can get to grips with the Persians."

Startled, the older man shook his head in dismay. "Dahvos, are you sure? We'd have to back eight thousand men off this hill, march through those narrow lanes and hedgerows to get to the road. Let me take the heavy lancers straight ahead—our horse archers and light horse can cover the wing."

Jusuf half turned in his saddle, motioning with a gloved hand at the plain. "Look, the Persians have drawn off all their cavalry to the far end of their line. There's nothing down there but spearmen backed by archers and slingers! We can crack right through them!"

"And the Arab horse?" Dahvos slapped a hand against his thigh with a
crack
. "They have a reserve, too, though we've not seen it. They must be hiding back behind their infantry, just like ours are hidden in these trees. They will countercharge into you and you'll be exposed and afoot. Get the lancers back off the hill and follow my orders!"

Jusuf met his brother's eyes, feeling a tension in the air between them. There was a fierce light in the younger man's blue eyes. Jusuf ran a hand back through his hair, feeling his scalp slick with sweat.
He is khagan,
thought the Khazar,
and he is probably right.

"Yes,
khagan
," Jusuf barked, raising an arm in salute. "As you command."

He turned the horse and trotted off through the ragged lane of olive trees. He felt anxious, hurried, eager to be done with this thing. Jusuf shook his head as he rode, regretting the harsh tone in his parting words.
But there is no time to lose in argument or apology.

"
Tarkhans
, attend me!" he shouted as he rode through the orchard, drawing the attention of his banner leaders. "Leave your men who are exposed on the crest; everyone else reverse and follow me. We're back to the road!"

Nearly seven thousand Khazar lancers swarmed onto their horses, slapping helmets on their heads, stowing waterskins. The orchard quickly filled with dust and a deafening racket as the
tumens
mounted up and then turned in place. Jusuf was quickly hoarse from shouting, trying to bully the men into order again and get them moving back down the hill. Thousands of men did not reverse direction easily.

Oh,
he thought in disgust, watching a pall of white dust drift up above the trees,
this is secret, all right.

A thicket of spears crashed into the shield wall. Rufio, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Faithful, felt the blow on his shoulder and hip. A wild screaming filled the air as the Slavs and their Avar masters stormed in again, slipping and sliding on ground thick with a slurry of blood, mud and entrails. Three times the Avars and their levies had rushed the Faithful, trying to break through the Roman line, and three times the staunch defense had thrown them back in bloody ruin. Bodies were heaped up on all sides, limbs hewn off, faces cut open, heads lolling at impossible angles. Rufio twisted his shield, slipping a spear point, though it ripped across the painted linen. The Greek stabbed out, his
gladius
licking against the arm of a Slav.

The black-bearded man shrieked like a harpy, stabbing wildly overhand, trying to strike Rufio's head or neck. He barely noticed the tempered steel of the sword sink into his bicep and then rip out again. Nerveless fingers slipped from the haft of the spear and it clattered away, disappearing among the sweaty, straining men on all sides. Rufio smashed out with his shield, cracking the iron-bound rim against the man's face. The Slav gasped, blood spattering from a ruined nose, then shuddered as Rufio's blade plunged into his armpit. He fell away.

The Greek had no respite. Two heavily armored Avars, their scale mail gleaming under fur cloaks and yellow-and-brown surcoats, pressed in behind the dying Slav. Both barbarians were fighting afoot, though Rufio glimpsed they were wearing the long split iron "skirt" favored by the Eastern nomads. A straight sword jabbed at the Greek's face, ringing off his helmet guard as he ducked aside at the last moment. Desperate, for both men were obviously veterans, Rufio jammed his
scutum
up, catching their swords as they lunged and knocking them away. Shouting for the Faithful on either side to follow, he rushed forward, slamming into the body of the first Avar.

The man's high-cheekboned face disappeared behind the heavy shield with a ringing
crack
as the wood hit his riveted helmet. Rufio slashed sideways at the other horseman, but the point of the
gladius
grated across the iron lozenges of his armor, then stuck between two of the palm-sized plates. The Avar's sword snapped back, biting into the edge of Rufio's shield. The soft iron squeaked as Eastern steel bit into it. Rufio kicked out, catching the man on his hip. The Avar grunted, then both rushed forward. The Greek's shield took the blow and he was knocked down, sliding back through the grayish-red slurry.

Rufio twisted, trying to rise, but the first Avar leapt in hacking and the long, straight blade rang off the shoulder plate of the Greek's
lorica
. Stunned, Rufio was thrown down again. Feet and legs flashed past his face, then the sun was blocked out. A great roaring sound erupted around the captain. The Faithful stormed forward over his body, their long axes hacking and spinning in the sunlight. One of the Avars fell, his shield cloven in half by a huge blow, arm shattered. Rufio staggered up, clutching at Olaf's arm. The old Scandian stood over the captain, protecting him with his body.

"Form shield wall!" He barely managed to gasp out the words, but the Faithful were already pressing forward, in a tight knot, shoulder to shoulder, their massive shields making a solid wall across the front. Arrows hissed past in the air. A dozen more Slav and Avar bodies lay crumpled on the ground. Rufio seated his helmet again, tightening the strap under his chin. The air seemed enormously hot and he was sweating rivers under his heavy armor, but he pushed up into the line of battle.

The hundred-and-twenty-yard front between the barrier of the Arab wall on the left and the ditch in front of the city wall was tightly compressed, but both Avar and Eastern troops continued to pour into the fray, fueling the ferocious struggle with more and more bodies.

Off to the west, beyond the ruined wall, Rufio was vaguely aware of a mounting roar of men and iron and the thunder of hooves shaking the earth.

"Cousin." Zoë held out her left hand, gloved in gleaming mail. Odenathus was astride his horse, close by, and the glossy brown mare stepped delicately forward, bringing her rider leg to leg with Zoë's. The young Palmyrene, his long, lean face filled with worry, reached out and clasped fingers with his cousin. "Are you ready?"

"I am." Odenathus' liquid brown eyes met hers, steady and unflinching. "Do you remember when he couldn't even keep a wagon wheel in the air?"

"Yes." A terrible sadness gripped Zoë, though she knew that Dwyrin had done nothing to bring about this day. He, of all their little five, had remained true to his oaths and sworn allegiance. Everyone else had lost faith, from emperors to queens. "I remember. But he is not a lost child anymore. We must be swift in action, relentless, like a striking hawk."

Odenathus nodded, but she could see her own despair mirrored in his expression. Even through his heavy glove and her armor, she could feel the heat in his hand.

"Meet my mind," she commanded, closing her eyes.

Zoë and Odenathus bent towards each other, putting away all thought of the horses under their thighs, the hot wind in their hair, the distant thunder of battle. Zoë felt the shell of her self slough away and she raised her eyes, looking out across the storm of light and shadow and fire that marked the battle. Men struggled and died, their tiny flames sputtering out, leaving a horde of ghosts raging in the air over the plain. The brittle patterns of the Roman thaumaturges remained as well, distorting the air over the battle lines of the Legions. But there on the ruined wall was a burning light like a sun rising through fog.