The Storm of Heaven (88 page)

The Palmyrene queen rolled over, groaning in pain. She hurt all over, but the ward had deflected the brunt of the explosion. She rose, dripping with mud, clods of earth clinging to her armor. Someone was there, out in the darkness, a familiar figure, a power that she had once tutored herself. Tantalizing familiarity reached out to her, a missing place in the battle-meld.

O Great and Merciful One! Dwyrin?

"I hear you, Zoë," The Hibernian was glowing, a shining orange sphere rotating around him. Even Nicholas could see it in the darkness, a mottled, translucent surface brilliant with signs and arcane symbols. The northerner cowered on the roof of the barn, hoping that the straw did not burst into flame. Orange shadows danced around him, thrown by the glittering ward. "You should not be fighting me. You swore an oath, once, have you forgotten?"

Dwyrin's mouth continued to move, but Nicholas could no longer hear the words. A rushing sound filled the air, like the passage of a vast flock of birds. Wind sprang up out of the west. Through the shifting sphere, Nicholas could see the boy etch a sign in the air, then stab out his hand again.

The earth shook. Nicholas curled up into a ball, armored hands clasped behind his head. Another flare of azure light filled the sky with a shattering roar. A half-mile away, the Arab wall erupted skyward. Burning logs catapulted through the night, trailing smoke and sparks. More fires were burning on the plain where flaming debris had landed. A vast billow of smoke was mounting into the sky, lit by flames from below.

"You should not have betrayed me." Dwyrin's voice was rising, catching a strange edge. His fist curled and drew to his heart. Nicholas grabbed Vladimir and together they rolled off the roof, landing heavily in the yard. The pair scrambled to the wall, pressing themselves against the cold fieldstone. The earth heaved, rippling with the echo of a titanic blast, and a hot wind rushed over them. The straw roof finally caught fire.

Zoë staggered away from the burning ruin of the wall, her face streaked with blood. Everything behind her was aflame, wrapped in smoke and jets of steam hissing out of the earth. The air was filled with drifting embers and sparks. Some touched her cloak and clung, burning. Hundreds of men fled past her. Some of them were wreathed in flame, yet they still ran. Her shields flickered into sight, then faded again. Desperately, she turned, crouching on the ground. The second wall had been smashed down as well. She had crawled in the mud, struggling out of the ditch that faced the city.

Odenathus!
Her cry was faint, but he was there instantly. She caught a fleeting glimpse of a horse's neck and rushing wind.
Dwyrin's here! He's stronger than I am! Help me!

We're coming
was his reply, breathless and hurried, and there was wind rushing past.
Fall back to the north, if you can.

Another explosion ripped the night, throwing another watchtower into the air. Zoë pressed herself to the cold earth. Burning logs smashed down around her, bouncing across the ground, spewing sparks and smoke. A man a dozen feet away leapt up, screaming, and tried to run. A log toppled out of the night and crushed him, grinding him into the earth. Vast pyres burned in the wreckage of the wall. Every tent seemed to be alight.

Zoë limped away, to the north, throwing aside her charred cloak. Transient blue patterns gleamed in the air around her, though in the face of the power that was walking upon the earth to her west, she knew they were little defense.

Light stabbed in the north, and there was a ringing like a great bell being struck. Odenathus was putting forth his own power.

Is Mohammed there?
Zoë tried to run and found that her left leg was weak. She stopped, running her hand along the muscle. Something was sticking out of her leg. A splinter had arrowed through the center of one of the links in the mail. Gritting her teeth, she knelt and yanked it out. Fresh pain flooded her leg and she gasped.
Odenathus! Answer me!

The sky lit up, furious bolts of azure and crimson arcing out of the west. Three sharp explosions followed and the battle-meld with her cousin vanished. Zoë grimaced, fighting back tears, and fumbled at her leg. She needed a bandage.

"Sahaba! Sahaba, to me!" Zoë's voice was hoarse. Smoke bit at her throat. Men ran in the darkness, fleeing past her. None of them stopped. She ripped the sleeve from her shirt, wrapping it around the wounded leg. "In Allau's name, to me!"

The bandage clenched on her thigh and the pain ebbed, but she was weak, very weak. Smoke drifted over her, glowing orange and vermilion in the light of the burning walls and towers. She crawled towards the north, mud squelching under her fingers. Behind her, in the huge gap torn in the Arab circumvallation, Roman soldiers appeared, scrambling across the ruins. As they advanced, the fires died, guttering out, swallowed by the earth.

Something came, a spectral orange glow that crept across the ground. A figure was at the center of the radiance, drifting across ditches choked with charred bodies. Lines of armored men hurried forward on both sides, their faces in shadow.

Mohammed turned from the south, face black with anger. The horizon was a sea of flame. Great clouds of smoke covered the land, lit from within by infernal lights. The Quraysh's face was half lit by the terrible radiance. "Is this your help, King of Kings? My men are dying, but you will do nothing?"

Shahr-Baraz shook his head. His visage was grim, mustaches gleaming in the firelight. "Lord Mohammed, I do not believe my men could do any better in the inferno than yours, even with the hearts of lions. Come, order your army to fall back upon our camp. Let my priests join their power with yours and Prince Odenathus. Perhaps together we can defeat this
daeva
the Romans have brought against us."

Mohammed's eyes glinted dangerously, but he restrained his anger. Staring into the darkness, he saw the fires were beginning to die down. No messengers had come, which must mean disaster. He mounted his horse, the same old flea-bitten mare he had ridden since the Sahaba ventured forth from Mekkah. Looking down at the King of Kings, standing in the gate of the Persian camp, he nodded his head. "Very well. If the Romans have broken the wall, then we will fall back and take up positions here. Be ready."

The King of Kings, resplendent in golden armor, returned the nod with a raised hand. At his side, Khadames scratched his nose, then turned away and began to bellow orders. The Persians had leapt to arms, scrambling out of their tents, at the sound of the first explosion in the south. Now they would have to take up positions along the ramparts raised at the end of the bridge. The general would also have to prepare for thirty thousand Arabs to pour into the camp, baggage and all.

Mohammed rode off into the darkness, accompanied by a troop of heavy cavalry. Their banners fluttered in the darkness. Shahr-Baraz watched them go, tugging softly at his mustaches. He was not smiling, though on another day he might have, to see his ally humbled. He had exchanged words before with Lord Mohammed about the vast effort the Arab army had invested in the long fortification. Now their fleet would have to anchor directly off his camp, rather than on the far side of the city. It would make the blockade more interesting...

"Now, this is a puzzling turn." He frowned at the south, watching lines of flame advance across the fields. "What is this power that the Romans have woken—an Egyptian, a druid? They have never been blessed with something this strong before." The Boar turned his head, raising his chin in summons. One of the Shanzdah stepped out of the darkness, the eye slit of his helmet showing only darkness. "Go south and see what walks in the fire. Tell your master, and tell me."

The silent figure bowed its head, then turned silently and loped off into the darkness. Shahr-Baraz felt a chill on his neck, seeing the creature go. This trafficking with dark powers made him uneasy—but now, with the Romans coming against him in strength, he would not gainsay their help! He looked east, his lip curling in a snarl. A line of lights marked the ramparts and towers of Constantinople. He hated the city and its invincible defenses. Of all the battles and campaigns he had ever undertaken, only this place had defied him.

"Not this time," he hissed. "Not this time!"

Pipes and flutes wailed, carried by wild drumming. A ring of gladiators, their oiled bodies gleaming in the lamplight, danced, a young woman on each arm, their faces bright with laughter. An entire wall of musicians produced a swirling, hypnotic sound, much to the delight of hundreds of revelers packed into the main hall of the villa. Anastasia, her face swathed by a gray veil, pushed her way through the crowd on the staircase. Helena, even more heavily gowned, with two veils and a positively prudish hood, followed close behind. Vitellix, his face smiling and open, led them, his shirt a virulent mustard yellow. He was wearing red-and-white-checked tights, his head freshly shaved. The Duchess kept close behind him, letting his wide shoulders clear them a path.

The creamy-white marble steps of the grand staircase were already stained with spilled wine, crushed candied figs and drifts of young men and women in all states of undress. The
lanista
descended the stairs into thick crowds of people who were packed around the dancers. Eeling his way through, he reached the wall, Anastasia's hand clinging to his belt. It took nearly five grains to reach a doorway only a dozen feet away.

Anastasia felt faint and ill. The air was close and hot, filled with spices and incense and the battling pomade and perfume of a great number of sweaty people. Even in her own parties—which had, in their time, been noted for their decadence—she had never seen such indulgence. Every gladiator in the city had been invited to Narses' victory party, and they hauled with them the wild patrician youth, the prostitutes and acrobats and actors and pantomimes and hustlers who thronged the Aventine and made the Subura so dangerous by night. Vitellix shouldered aside a drunken youth, his toga slipped to the floor, a crown of holly tangled in his hair, who was feverishly copulating with a young girl pressed against the door. Faces flushed, the girl crying out, they barely noticed being pushed aside.

The Duchess squeezed past, turning her head. She had seen such things before, even done them, but since the eruption of Vesuvius she had lost her taste for senseless abandon. The frenzy in the air grated on her. She saw despair hiding behind the glad smiles and the violent dancing.
Is everyone desperate to feel alive?
They entered the chamber beyond, Helena treading close on Anastasia's heels.

This room was dimmer, filled with thick, bitter incense. The Duchess blinked, catching sight of Vitellix stepping carefully across the floor. Deep-pile rugs, fabulously expensive, covered the room. There were many more people, most of them naked or nearly so, writhing in their own lost dreams. Some of them had the glazed eyes of lotus eaters, others were making use of the couches and cushions. The Duchess swallowed, feeling the air bite at her throat. She hurried forward, oiled limbs brushing against her ankles. A doorway flanked by porphyry naiads led into an arched hallway. Vitellix was waiting, his head cocked, listening.

"Narses has done well by the school," Helena commented in a dry tone, looking around at the walls faced with dark green marble striated with gold. "I had no idea the salary of a
lanista
was so generous."

Vitellix blushed, then pointed with his chin. "This villa is owned by a patron of the school. I was here once before; these rooms are reserved for the master's guests. If Diana is in such favor, she will have one or more of them for her own."

"Privacy?" The Empress raised an eyebrow. "Luxurious?" Even in the palace, her own bedchamber was rarely private, plagued as it was by servants, maids, guardsmen and her husband. "Perhaps I should be a famous gladiatrix."

Anastasia pushed past Vitellix, pacing along the hallway. Each door was painted with scenes of forests, beaches, mountains. They were cunningly done, affording the illusion of opening into some fantastic world. At the third one, she heard a hoarse voice laughing. It sounded familiar. She paused, swallowing, nerving herself, and then pushed it open.

Despite her haste, Anastasia's effort to snatch Thyatis away from the clutches of the arena staff had failed. She had found Vitellix among the crowd of spectators and touts in the domed rooms behind the entrance tunnel. The Gaul had been beside himself with worry, but only the dead had been carried out through the Portia Libitina. There was no Thyatis. One of the slaves, pressed with gold, had shown them a second tunnel that led from the Portia into the lower tunnels. Guardsmen had blocked their way. Despite threats and bribes, they had not been able to enter the catacombs under the amphitheater.

Anastasia was sure Narses had expected something, secreting his prize fighter away. Inquiries in the Flavian the next day revealed the master of the Ludus Magnus had posted a contract between the school and Thyatis. She would be one of his free gladiators now, who had a special relationship with the Ludus Magnus. The Duchess' opinion of the crippled man sank to a new low. With a horde of scrawny-necked lawyers involved, she was tempted to start having people killed.

The room was opulent and garish, decorated with an astounding amount of brocaded red, green and yellow drapery. A huge bed, crowned by four carved posts, filled at least half the chamber. Gauze drapes covered the posts and hung down on three sides of the plush expanse. A man's feet were sticking out from under the gauze. Bits of clothing, armor and discarded bottles of liquor covered the floor. Like the lotus room, the floor was piled deep with carpets and rugs. Anastasia's sandals sank into them. There was another laugh, a hoarse, smoky voice.

"Lower, slave, lower! Yes, that's it... aaaah!"

At least two masculine voices answered with the sounds of laughter and oiled flesh on flesh. The Duchess grasped the embroidered gauze and flung it aside, face still and cold, revealing a tangle of bare limbs and sweat-dampened hair. Thyatis was lying back on a huge mountain of pillows, one leg hooked over the shoulder of a brawny young man. He and his companion were attending to her.