The Storm of Heaven (56 page)

He had prepared for this day, too. A word formed on his lips and he stabbed out his fist, letting a tiny portion of the sign raging within him billow forth.

Fire ripped across the plain, shattering the ranks of the first wave of Arabs. Huge jagged waves of flame consumed the men. Most of them simply disappeared in the actinic white glare. A halo of red light wavered in the air around Dwyrin, though he no longer had time to notice such things. The two shield men screamed and fell back, their faces burned. Steam hissed from their clothing and armor. Arrows filled the air, flaring bright against the fire-ward as they sought out Dwyrin's life.

On the plain, now lit by shuddering red light from pyres burning amid the scattered rocks, the massed ranks of the Arabs raised a great cry like the ringing of enormous trumpets:
Allau Akbar!

Then they surged onwards, the siege towers rumbling forward in their midst.

Nicholas squinted to the north, pale violet eyes straining against the gloom, one hand leaning on the parapet of the
praetorium
tower. Lurid orange and red stabbed on the horizon. A series of thunderous
booms
rolled over the roofs of the town, shaking dust from the rafters and startling the dogs awake. There were fires in the city, too, but luckily most of the buildings were brick. Something was throwing up a huge column of smoke, though, which glowed from below with a baleful red light. Amid the fumes the centurion could make out the flicker of a signal lantern.

"Tens of thousands," he muttered to himself, reading the slow pulse. "Shit."

Vladimir padded up, lanky frame jingling with a coat of heavy mailed armor. The Walach bartered a sheep for the old-style hauberk of overlapping leaf-shaped plates. He wore the mail cinched with a broad leather belt and a linen surcoat. One of the townswomen had stitched a snarling cat in black and white on the chest. It was poorly made, but Nicholas kept his peace, seeing the pride filling his friend. The Roman guessed the sign was the clan-totem of his people. A long-bladed ax was slung over the barbarian's shoulder. "Runners just came in, Nicholas, there are armed men on the western ramp."

Nicholas bit his lip, then came to a swift decision. The last day had come. "Vlad, round up the engineers, as quick as you can. We're going out. I'll get the boy and meet you in the tunnel. Go!"

Raising a thick black eyebrow in surprise, Vlad nodded sharply and then bolted down the stairs, taking the narrow steps three and four at a time. Nicholas would have tripped, broken his ankle and then stove in his fool head trying such a thing. The Walach was sure on his feet, though, and never seemed to step wrong. The centurion listened, cocking an ear to the darkness. Sure enough, he could hear the clink of metal on metal and the sound of men running in boots below the western wall. He did not risk looking over the edge. The enemy counted many fine archers among their number.

Sighing, he looked out over the domed roofs of the city, taking it all in. The thunder at the northern gate was still rising in pitch, with the entire line of the wall lit up by a violent red glare. The boy was making quite a noise, but if the enemy had enough men to test the whole length of the rampart, there was no way they could hold the city.

Another command wrecked,
he thought, caught by a tinge of remorse.
Another lee shore in a bad wind.

He pushed away thoughts of Dannmark and the memory of men shouting in fear in the darkness. The fog-shrouded coast of Scandia was far away and those men had been dead and rotting in the cold ground for years. Shouts from below the wall roused him to action. In a moment, ladders and grappling hooks would crash against the parapet. He needed to move swiftly. Despite his haste, he took the stairs only two at a time, one hand brushing the wall to steady himself.

Nicholas struggled through the plaza behind the Damascus gate, pushing through fleeing citizens. Despite their solid construction, the houses along the street were burning furiously with transparent blue-white flames. The northerner crouched low, scuttling along the ground. Women and children were running in the other direction, wailing in thin, high-pitched voices. Some of them were on fire. Things seemed to have gotten out of hand atop the gate tower. He paused, trying to draw breath in the superheated air, sheltering behind a tall column standing in the middle of the plaza. The carvings of marching soldiers and triumphant emperors were hot to the touch.

In his hand,
Brunhilde
was keening with fear. The blade's watery surface reflected a hundred leaping flames. Another titanic
boom
rocked the city and clods of dirt and stone rained down into the street. Nicholas could feel power surging in the air, bitter with the smell of discharged lightning. He mustered his courage, peering around the column.

The main tower seemed intact, though a whirling orb of red light wrapped the upper third. Flashes and sparks danced against the northern face of the sphere. Nicholas gripped
Brunhilde
tight then thrust her forward and sprinted for the base of the stairs. She shrieked in outrage, but the blade cut through the wavering red light, leaving a whirling tunnel of breathable air. He took the stairs as fast as he could, bending his shoulder forward. There was a burning hot resistance and each step was a struggle.
Brunhilde
began to smoke and glow but he reached the roof of the tower alive. The rectangular space was littered with corpses, most of them charred beyond recognition.

Nicholas felt sick. These were Romans from the look of the puddled, melting armor. The stones cracked underfoot, broken by the intense heat. He skipped across them, hoping that his boots would hold out. Bending nearly double, he peered between the merlons out onto the plain before the city.

The plain burned and smoked, pitted by huge craters. Columns of Arabs continued to rush forward into the conflagration, their helms glowing orange in the flare of the sphere of fire. Pillars of smoke boiled up, clouding the sky, and fiery stones plunged from the heavens among the running men. The remains of two siege towers smoldered on the road before the gate, shattered, logs and mantlets scattered in all directions. The war cries of the attackers were faint, almost drowned out by the burning hiss of stones bursting amongst them.

Nicholas flinched back from the carnage, seeing the ground carpeted with... He stopped, then looked again. Then he did curse, violently and at length, but it was too late to do anything but what he had already done.

"Dwyrin!" His scream was lost in the ripping sound of a bolt of fire leaping from the boy's fingertips to lash down amongst a charging battalion of armored horsemen. The ground erupted at the blow, spewing dirt and rock and limp bodies into the air. Nicholas lunged to the boy's side, feeling the feeble protection afforded by his sword fail. Heat beat at him like the mouth of a furnace. He grabbed Dwyrin's arm, then stifled a cry, feeling his hand burn. "Come on, lad! It's fake, it's all fake! We've got to run!"

The boy turned, head swiveling like that of a hunting cat, and Nicholas felt his heart go cold at the sight of Dwyrin's eyes. They were slits of brilliance, blazing with incandescent light. Nick slapped him hard across the face, wincing at the pop and bubble of his flesh as he touched forge-hot skin.

Dwyrin's head rocked back at the blow and the burning light flickered in his eyes.

"Look! Look at the ground! Where are the bodies?" Nicholas pointed, his hand smoking. Dwyrin turned, staring out over the battlement. Hordes of Arabs, their armor bright, continued to pour across the blasted landscape, their banners and spears held high. They ran across empty ground. Amid the chaos of rubble and smoking craters, there were no bodies. Not even one.

An arrow flicked out of the night and burst into flame against the sphere. A droplet of molten iron struck the breastplate of Nicholas'
lorica
and clung there, hissing. He grabbed the boy by the shoulder and dragged him away from the parapet. The sphere flared up for a moment and then suddenly went dark with an audible
pop
.

Nicholas stumbled on the stairs, blind in the sudden darkness, but then hauled the boy over his shoulders and staggered down. The light of the burning buildings would do to light his way. Flagstones cracked under his boots, turning to dust as he ran. Behind him, the limestone face of the tower was burning too, with a hot green fire as the rock sublimated into the air in a glowing cloud.

Allau Akbar!
rang across the dark sky, roiling with columns and drifts of smoke.

Vladimir came to a halt at the base of a great ramp of fitted stone. It rose up above him into the gloom, vaulting up from the twisted narrow street of the
decumanus
to the looming wall of the Temple Mount. A few torches guttered in the high wind, but most of the entranceway was dark, the columns and soaring walls shadowed. Bronze faced doors sealed the top of the ramp, but the guards that usually stood there were gone. Dust blew in gusts across the road.

"Sextus! Frontius!" The Walach's voice boomed from the marble statues that guarded the gate of the gods. "It's Vlad! Where are you?"

The Walach cursed. He had found some of the Roman
fabrii
at the tetrapylon and had told them to make for the tunnel. Their two cohort leaders were still missing. One of the messenger boys had told him, breathlessly, as he was running from the southern wall to the north, that they had gone into the temple precincts. Vlad jogged up the ramp, turning his head to the north, trying to keep grit out of his eyes. The wind faltered when he came into the archway before the door. He turned, looking back along the length of the central street of the town. The platform of the temples was raised fifty or sixty feet above the rest of the city. He saw that the entire northern wall was afire and wrapped in billowing fumes.

"Damn these engineers! Where are they?"

A flicker of light to the south drew his eye. Even in this poor light, with the air hazed with smoke and dust, he could make out men struggling on the roof of the Dung Gate tower. Torches and spilled oil burned, lighting swarms of warriors in tan and white cloaks pouring over the wall. Vlad snarled, seeing disaster hemming him in on all sides. He checked the presence of his long-bladed axe with a fingertip, then swung his hand hard against the bronze plates.

They boomed, a deep sound, and he howled for the missing
fabrii
again.

This time a monstrous creaking sound and the rumble of iron wheels on stone answered him. The two bronze doors began to swing outwards, accompanied by a string of curses and the grunts of straining men. Vlad leapt to the opening doors and added his own strength. With the effort of his strong arm, the gates swung wide. A wagon rolled out, creaking under its own weight. Sextus was on one side, pushing with all his might, his face red with effort. Frontius and a dozen of the stonemasons from the cohort were also hauling on the wagon, pushing it across the threshold.

"Gods, what is in this thing?" Vlad was putting his full strength into the wagon, yet it barely moved at all, groaning with the slow screech of tortured wood. Sextus shook his head, unable to speak. At the top of the ramp was a channel that let rainwater spill away to either side. The front wheels of the wagon rolled to it and stopped, stuck. Vlad cursed again, but the lead surveyor let go of the front wheel with a wheeze.

"That's it! Come on lads, make for the tunnel."

The stonemasons shook out their arms, grimacing, and then gathered up their kit from the wagon. Vlad watched them run down the ramp with a puzzled eye. Each of them had a heavy bag bouncing at their shoulder, as well as their usual armor, weapons and tools.

"What is this?" Vlad poked at the jumble of statues, pots, baskets and cloth in the back of the wagon. It glittered in the light of the few remaining torches and the ruddy glow in the sky.

"A little delay," said Frontius, still breathing heavily as he crammed his helmet onto his head. A heavy chain hung around his neck. Sextus was similarly attired, though he was trying to carry a heavy scroll case under one arm. In the bad light, Vlad thought that it was made of ivory. "Are the others in the tunnel?"

"I don't know," growled Vladimir, showing long incisors. The two Romans started backwards at the deep sound. "Nick sent me to find the lot of you! I passed some of the carpenters in the tetrapylon, but the rest? Scattered to the wind for all I know. Why weren't you at your posts?"

Sextus pointed to the north, where the conflagration by the Damascus Gate was raging out of control in the close-packed buildings.

"We saw the boy call up the sun," he said, raising his voice over the wind that now howled around them. "I guessed it was the big attack, so I knew that the centurion would want us to make a dash for it. I just couldn't go without this!" He patted the scroll-case.

"He's a fool," shouted Frontius, pulling the leather hood of his cape over his head. "We should have all been in the tunnel twenty grains ago! Come on, help me with this."

Vlad bent down behind the wagon, letting it shelter him from the wind, which was growing sharp, rushing towards the blazing buildings in the north. Sextus scuttled around the wagon and he and Frontius tied a rope to a stay behind the driver's seat. With some care they then began to spool out the rope, with Frontius laying on the ramp as they descended towards the town, Sextus walking backwards behind him, playing out the line from a coil around his shoulder. Vlad, mindful of the wind, hurried after them, the heavy ivory case under one arm and his axe free in the other.

At the bottom of the ramp, they ducked into a building beside the road. The stonemasons had already entered it and had climbed down through a hole in the floor of one of the rooms. The hidden street lay just below. Vlad peered out of the shutters, seeing the sky slowly light with a spreading red light.

Beside him, Sextus yanked hard on the rope and there was a
crack
and then a dissonant rattle of metal and crockery on the long ramp. Coins bounced past, spinning into the dirt of the street.