Khalid fell back a step, letting the Sahaba run past and form up in a line of three ranks.
Arrows continued to snap back and forth between the opposing lines. The smoke was beginning to blow away, carried in a desultory afternoon breeze. Khalid felt sweat pooling in his shirt and against his spine. Hot work out here, even with the water so close...
"Charge!" Horns and trumpets echoed his scream and the qalb rushed to the attack, iron-shod boots trampling through the flames still licking on stone. There was a breathless, still moment as they stormed forward. Then the Roman line appeared out of the murk and there was a massive crash! as iron met iron, shield against shield. Men began to shout, a deep, angry roar, and a din of blades and spears and shields drowned all other noise.
Khalid waved more men forward. Now they would see whose arm was the stronger, whose heart the steadier.
—|—
"What is happening on the outer wall?" Aurelian's voice snapped in the dimly-lit room.
One of the runners stared at him with wide eyes, gasping for breath. The Egyptian had just run the length of the city, from the commandery at the Gate of the Sun. Everyone in the headquarters grew silent, waiting for him to speak.
"There are too many," the boy panted. "They're attacking everywhere, along the entire length of the wall, from the lake to the sea."
"Impossible!" Aurelian's angry response was instant. "They don't have the men to—"
"My lord!" The boy was on his knees, hands clasped. "It's true! It's true! I saw fighting everywhere..."
Aurelian snarled, grinding a fist into his thigh. "How can there be so many?" he shouted, glaring at his aides and clerks. "The wall is three miles long!"
A commotion in the entrance distracted him and the prince's eye lit up to see one of his Praetorians push into the room. The big German's helmet was missing, his lank blond hair matted with sweat and an ugly cut oozed yellow serum from the side of his neck.
"Carus! What happened at the ship?" Aurelian leaned forward eagerly.
"Greek pirates," shouted the man in answer, "but we were ready. They are all dead. The ship is ours. But there—"
"Excellent." Aurelian grinned. Then he heard a strange sound rising outside. "What is that?"
Everyone turned to the windows, staring out into an unnaturally dark afternoon. The entire sky was a sickly, corroded-copper green. Strange thread-like clouds writhed in the sky. Aurelian squeezed to the nearest window, head canted as he listened.
Far away, a dull, roaring sound boomed down empty avenues. A moment later, the prince could feel the floor under his feet begin to shake. "Sorcery?" He turned, eyes searching for Phranes. "Where are our thaumaturges?" Aurelian barked, a sudden queasy feeling turning his stomach. The clerk started in alarm, then pushed off through the crowd.
"Carus, where are my guardsmen?"
"At the causeway," the German shouted, waving his arm. "There is fighting on the causeway!"
—|—
"Look out!" Sextus yelled desperately. Frontius glanced over his shoulder, cursing, and staggered as an Arab axe slammed into his turning back. Metal plates splintered and wires snapped. The engineer was driven to his feet, blood oozing between the metal plates of his lorica. Sextus fell back himself, fending off a questing spear jabbing at his groin. A confused melee spilled around the base of the white pillar standing at the junction of the Heptastadion and the city proper, swirling knots of men struggling across the circular plaza. One of the enemy, dark brown face split by a mad grin, lunged at Sextus again.
The engineer banged the spear aside with his shield. Wildly, he searched for Frontius among flashing blades and rushing men. The Arab stabbed overhand, triangular iron point flashing at the Roman's eyes. Sextus slewed his shield into the path of the spearpoint, catching it square. Metal ground on wood and Sextus—grimacing furiously—lunged in, stabbing with his gladius. The Arab danced back, the shorter blade missing cleanly.
The clatter of boots on stone rose up behind the engineer, but he was fully occupied trying to keep the spear from slashing open his knee or the inside of his thigh. A huge crash sounded and burly men with red cloaks suddenly rushed past the engineer. Sextus gasped with relief, staggering back out of the line of battle. A cohort of Praetorians tore into the Arabs and the spearman was hacked down by a long, heavy blade wielded two-handed by one of the Germans.
"Frontius!" Sextus scrambled sideways, towards the water's edge, rolling bodies over, searching for his friend. Rumpled corpses lay in clots on the plaza, Roman and Arab alike. The roar of men and the clash of arms was very loud, but the engineer ignored the stiffening melee around the base of the pillar. His hands, black with grime and sweat, searched among tormented bodies. Many groaned as he moved them, blood spilling from slack mouths, eyes rolling wildly, but he could not find Frontius.
Fighting shoulder to shoulder, the Praetorians drove the Arabs back. Many of the more lightly armed and armored desert men found their shields splintered, helms driven in, arms beaten down by the massive Germans. Horns wailed and the attackers fell back. The Praetorians halted their advance, dressing their line. Militiamen dragged the wounded back from the line and into the shelter of the buildings fronting the plaza.
Sextus reached the water's edge—the dockside ended in a smooth marble wall overlooking turgid, dark water—and cursed sadly. His squint-eyed friend, the veteran of so many campaigns and scrapes, was nowhere to be found. Mastering himself, Sextus turned back to the plaza, surprised to find a chipped gladius still clutched in his hand. His arm began to shake as the rush of bloodfire dwindled. He hadn't had a moment to think since they'd run to the end of the Heptastadion and found the road filling with rebel mercenaries...
A steady stream of Arabs in green-and-tan jogged down the causeway, swelling their numbers on the far side of the plaza. Sextus looked around, feeling sick. A line of Praetorians blocked the main part of the road junction, but they were swiftly becoming outnumbered. The engineer stared back towards the main docks and the building where the prince made his headquarters. We need reinforcements, he thought wildly. But who...
A crowd of men in tunics was running up the docks towards him, a tall, redheaded figure in the lead. The clerks? And Caesar Aurelian? Sextus felt unaccountable relief, even at the odd sight of such a motley band coming to their aid. Taking heart, he groped for a shield among the dead, finding one still intact, and quickly slipped his arm into the loops.
"Allau ak-bar!"
The dreaded cry roared from hundreds of throats. Sextus looked up in alarm in time to see the mass of the Arabs surge forward, every man screaming defiance of Rome. The line of Praetorians tensed, then rocked back with the charge. The Germans began their own hoarse, bellowing chant, stabbing and hacking with abandon as the enemy came to grips with them. The legionaries gave three paces, then stood firm. A brutal hammering smote the air and men fought and died locked shoulder to shoulder with their fellows. Men from the second and third ranks stepped up as those in the first fell, faces grim and filled with terrible purpose.
Aurelian ran up, long hair streaming. A ragged band of clerks and scribes followed at his heels. Sextus moved to join the prince, who threw himself into the fray around the white pillar, when he caught a strange sound—no, two strange sounds. The engineer slowed, turning, and saw one of the avenues leading into the plaza fill with running people.
They were citizens, not soldiers, and they were screaming, a mad, wild sound filled with utter fear. Sextus froze, goggling at the huge mass of men, women and children packed into the street. They came on like the tide, every face mad with panic. In the brief instant he watched, a dozen or more fell and were trampled beneath relentless, hammering feet.
"Sextus!" A gasping voice caught his ear and the engineer crouched, eyes searching the littered dead. A hand waved weakly, a body trapped under the corpses of two Arabs. Sextus leapt to his friend, grasping a bloodstained arm and dragging him into the sickly gray light. Frontius choked, coughing, and spit hair and
torn bits of bloody flesh from his mouth. "Help me... up."
"I've got you," Sextus grunted, rolling a body away with his boot. Frontius was heavy, one arm hanging limp, a thin red stream spilling from his leather sleeve. "Can you stand?"
Frontius nodded weakly. One eye was half-closed by a massive purple bruise and his helmet was gone. Sextus got a shoulder under the man, then stood. Frontius gasped, head rolling back, eyes bulging, but did not cry out. Without waiting, Sextus began dragging the other engineer towards headquarters and the medikus, all thoughts of standing and fighting gone.
The mob swarmed into the plaza moments later as the two engineers trudged west along the docks. A hopeless screaming mass of people flooded around them. Half-naked men leapt into the harbor waters. Some began swimming for the island offshore, others simply disappeared under the dirty brown water. Sextus staggered, slammed in the side by a woman in a patrician gown. She shrieked, clawing at his face. Frontius groaned weakly as the engineer swung him out of the way. Sextus' bunched fist cracked across the woman's nose, throwing her to the ground. She vanished under a pressing, pushing mob. The air stank of fear and sweat and a dry, musty odor like the dust in a long abandoned room.
Grimly, Sextus struggled west along the dock, forcing his way through the steadily worsening crowd. The citizens had seen something, but the engineer didn't have the time to discover what had driven them into flight. Something bad, he hazarded, knocking aside an elderly man in a bathing towel. A phantasm or terror sent by the enemy, no doubt.
His whole attention focused on gaining another yard towards the dubious sanctuary of the headquarters, Sextus ignored the stabbing yellow heat lightning rumbling and cracking in the low clouds, as well as the drumming roar echoing down the streets from the east.
—|—
The Gate of the Sun shuddered, heavy iron-bossed cedar panels shaking with the blow of a ram. The roadway below the looming towers was crowded with thousands of Persians in heavy armor. Sunflower banners danced above their heads and golden masks gleamed in the pale sun. Once more, the pushtigbahn threw their shoulders into the ropes guiding an iron-sheathed ram.
"Swing!" chanted a bull-voiced sergeant. The ram swung back, then slammed into the gate with a crash! Wood splintered and ancient hinges groaned. Crouched along smoke-darkened walls, swordsmen tensed, waiting for the panel to shatter. "Swing!"
—|—
Dahak leapt from the roof of his rune-carved wagon, dark cloak trailing, flying above massed ranks of diquans and spearmen and sappers with shovels and picks. A shining gradient buoyed him up, cutting the tether of the earth and he landed, bare feet slapping down on soot-blackened stone, atop the northern gatehouse tower. The air around him shimmered and flexed with the faint remains of the Roman ward, but the prince's lips stretched back over chisel-sharp teeth. Feet covered with fine ebony scales stepped down among crushed, mangled bodies. Not a single legionnaire remained alive atop the tower. The shattered, twisted remains of a siege engine littered the wooden roof.
"All things fail," he growled, then muttered words in a tongue lost before the Drowning swallowed the glory of the antediluvian world. A whirling sign formed in the air around him, rotating counterclockwise, blazing with subtle, iridescent light. The sign expanded, twisting and distorting the air. The Roman pattern shattered, crumbling into flickers of light and slowly falling rain. The Lord of the Ten Serpents raised both hands, his will pressing on stone and timber and the invisible bindings of the ancients. Geometric forms splintered, power draining away into the silty earth and a flash of sullen green light lit the entire length of the rampart. "The work of men not least."
The floor under the sorcerer shook again with the blow of the ram and his flattened ears caught the sound of splintering wood, then a roar of victory from the living men crowded into the road below. The panels squealed open, pushed by hundreds of hands, and the Persian army poured into the city. Dahak smiled, lifting his head to look upon Alexandria the Golden.
So, hated child, your handiwork is cast down again... I told you I would triumph in the end!
Already, the restless dead overwhelmed the wall at a dozen points. Against their limitless numbers, the Romans lacked the men to repel every assault. Columns of shambling figures crawled over the rampart as far as the eye could see. A few of the Roman towers continued to hold out, flame spilling down sandstone, men struggling on the parapet, stabbing and hacking at the ghoulish horde surging up from below. Yet, even as Dahak watched, he saw a wall topple, borne down by the weight of so many animate corpses and the dead flood into the breach, a seething carpet of brown ants, withered hands and rotted teeth dragging down the legionaries fighting within.
Dahak laughed in delight, seeing living men torn apart by the grasping talons of the gaatasuun.
The city spread out before him, a rumpled carpet of terra-cotta roofs, temples and marble spires. Smoke billowed up from scattered points—fires set in fear or caught by accident—sending up towering pillars of black and gray to mix with the uneasy green sky. Off to his left, Dahak could see the arcades of a Roman theatre rising above clustered apartments, to his right a dense agglomeration of three- and four-story buildings, richly painted, with flat white roofs. One of the buildings was burning fiercely, flames jetting from tall, narrow windows, flinging tiny white specks into the sky. The roof tiles glowed cherry-red with heat from some tremendous inner conflagration. The sorcerer squinted, bending his attention upon the roaring fire, and suddenly barked a foul curse.
Thousands of sheets of papyrus and parchment were being born up on columns of flame.
Pages? The Library? My Library! Dahak turned towards the distant port, seeing more smoke rising, and very distantly, the sparkle of spears and armor on the long causeway connecting the island of the Pharos to the middle of the city. Khalid and his men are still fighting to enter, he realized, eyes swinging sickly back to the burning Library buildings. I need those books...
Voice speaking like thunder, the sorcerer leapt into the air again, invisible servants swarming to him, a glistening flight of loathsome birds to hold him up. He sped north with unseemly speed, his will reaching out heedlessly in the hidden world to damp the flames and hold back the roaring conflagration from the library stacks.
Behind him, the Gate of the Sun echoed with the tramp of marching boots and the cheers of the Persian soldiery as they entered the city.
—|—
Confusion reigned in the plaza around the white pillar. Mobs of frightened citizens continued to pour out of the city, throwing the Roman line into disorder. The Praetorians dissolved into knots of individual soldiers fighting to keep together. The Sahaba fared no better, pressed back by screaming, weeping women. Khalid bounced from foot to foot, shouting commands to his men. The roar of the crowd, a vast, frightened baying, drowned his voice. The mob pushed the Arabs back, forcing them to lock shields and dig in their feet to hold back the human tide.
"They're getting away," Khalid shouted, pointing with his sword. A mass of legionaries were fighting their way west along the docks. The young Arab could see a tall Roman—the man had to be an officer with his commanding presence—rallying the legionaries to him. "Follow me!"
Khalid darted off to the right, hacking around him with the blade of the city. The shining dark edge sheared through a scrawny neck, then into the arm of a fat woman cradling a baby. The child flew off into the crowd, the woman wailing, pudgy fingers clamped over a spurting wound. The Sahaba hesitated, many of the men unwilling to strike down the innocents sobbing around them, but then rushed forward, following their general. In a grain, their faces were tight, unfeeling masks as they stabbed and chopped their way forward. With the main body of the Sahaba leaving the causeway, the citizens flooded past towards the island.
Blade dripping crimson, Khalid broke out of the mob, loping forward among the fallen. Ahead, the legionaries had resorted to pushing their way through the mob by brute force. They had locked spears into a wedge and advanced step-by-step,
forcing aside the crowd by main strength. The harbor was white with foam, dozens of people plunging into the water.
The red-bearded officer was in the middle of the rear rank, a commanding voice shouting to his men, an outstretched arm holding a Roman cavalry sword out to mark their line as they backed up. Khalid sprinted up, suddenly filled with perfect, icy determination. He did not recognize the man's face, but every instinct screamed general! to him. The Sahaba rushed soundlessly after him, lean wolves hot on the scent.
Khalid leapt a sprawled body, the blade of night darting out, just as the Roman turned his head.
The man blocked, spatha whipping up to smash Khalid's stroke aside. The Arab was stunned, obsidian blade nearly torn from his fingers, and skipped back wildly. The Roman blade clove the air where he'd stood, powering through a tight arc. One of the Sahaba, charging up to help his commander, met the blur of steel with a lunging spear. The Roman turned sideways, the spear point slashing past, and the return stroke clove the Arab's head from his shoulders.
Khalid goggled, lean, dark face spotted with blood. The Sahaban fighter's head bounced away, gargling, and crunched into the retaining wall beside the dock.
"Form up," bellowed the Roman, warning his men. Khalid dodged in, trying to circle, finding himself hemmed on three sides by the crowd and the line of soldiers, the other by the harbor waters. Where's Patik when I need him? he wailed inwardly, blocking an overhand cut. The ebon blade sang with a shrill note, taking the blow, and Khalid nearly lost his grip again. Fear sparked in his heart, draining strength from his limbs, and he fell back, parrying wildly. The Roman laughed, trading blows with another of the Sahaba. Almost contemptuously, the red-beard knocked the man's mace aside, then transfixed his throat with a sharp jab. Six inches of steel sprouted from the back of his neck, then withdrew in a blur.
The fear curdling in Khalid's heart disappeared in a blaze of fury. No man laughs at me!
He leapt at the enemy, flinging his shield aside. Taking the blade of the city in both hands, he powered in, the full strength of his wiry shoulders in an arcing cut. The Roman blocked, matching strength for strength, and the Arab's stroke cracked against an immobile barrier. Wincing, Khalid parried weakly, and the Roman drove his sword into the ground, steel springing back from marble paving.
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