Thunder boomed out of the west and Khalid-still cowering at the base of the slope-saw blue-white lightning leap down from the sky, flaring across the jackal's shoulder and chest. The thing howled, ebon flesh incandescent where the blast had lit, then smote the air with a fist, then again. Tongues of fire slashed out of the west, haloing the monstrous creature's head with smoke. Still the air bent and Khalid realized some kind of invisible barrier was deforming under the jackal's attack. He crawled away from the smoldering brush, then remembered the blade of night lay somewhere behind, lost among the flames.
"Curse it!" he growled, hurriedly wrapping the tail of his kaftan around his face, leaving only a slit for his eyes. The fires were still sputtering, flames licking up here and there, curling bitter white smoke from the ashy ground. The young Arab scrambled up the slope, casting about wildly, desperate to find the sword of the city. His skin flushed with sweat. Where are my people?
Together! roared Dahak and Zoe's mind submerged in a rushing black flood. The hidden world convulsed with stabbing white bolts of power. The Roman thaumaturges were weighing in, furious in their assault, bending the earth and sky to crush the shadow creature mired against the golden wall. Zoe felt the serpent curse in rage, then she, Arad and Odenathus moved as one, colossal arm swinging back as they bent their power against the tattered, deformed pattern. Dimly, though the helices of fire slamming into their own wards, she perceived a huge group of desperate minds-sixty? seventy? — hurling flame, lightning, every scrap of power against them.
The shadow's vast hands tore into gossamer gold, fingers wrapped in lightning, blazing with ultraviolet, and Dahak spoke a word. The sound reverberated in the smallest stone. Men fell dead for miles around, though others staggered and lived. The shining wall froze-constant motion stilled-and Zoe saw a vast overlapping matrix of geometric forms congeal from hurrying, inconstant, undefined motion. Dahak bellowed, forcing his strength through the shuddering form of Arad, and the golden ice shattered violently, breaking away in dizzying fragments from a pinpoint blast of will.
The opposing minds vanished from Zoe's perception, blown aside like leaves ripped from the trees by a titanic gale. The golden wall crumpled, breaking into brilliant shards, each one splintering into smoke, then nothing. The jackal strode forward, shadow long upon the land.
Khalid clung to the earth, feeling mud and brick buck under him like a wild horse. A log fell past, rolling down the slope. A huge ripping sound split the sky, then a shattering boom, followed by rushing, forge-hot wind. Khalid cowered, digging into the loose earth. A colossal footstep slammed down, followed by the screams of men. The Arab looked up and saw, not more than a yard away, a bronze-bound hilt gleaming in the wreckage.
"At last!" he croaked, crawling forward to seize the hilt with both hands. The blade of night sighed free from the earth and Khalid felt his heart soar with relief. The blade was unharmed! He rose to his feet, staring to the north. The head and shoulders of the jackal loomed up, wrapped in billowing smoke and dust. The thing's face was lit with flames. Stone splintered under its tread and Khalid saw a huge section of the Roman fortification was gone, cast down, only rubble and corpses remaining.
"Forward!" he screamed, pointing with the sword. "To me, Sahaba! To me!"
In the canal bottom, those men who still lived picked themselves up, caked with mud, streaked with crimson. Khalid ran along the slope, dodging fallen timbers, leaping across the dead. His men saw him, recognized the shining ebon blade in his hand, and they raised a tumultuous shout.
"The Eagle!" they cried, running forward, spears raised, catching the sun cutting down through the dust. "The Eagle!" Thousands of the Sahaba, shaking free of surprise and fear, flooded forward into the breach.
"That's torn it!" Sextus picked himself up from the road. An earth tremor had rippled the length of the wall and the military road, shaking open huge cracks in the earthwork, jumbling the logs laid down to provide a mud-resistant roadway. "Are you hurt?"
Frontius rolled over, unable to stand. His face was a tight mask of pain, gnarled hands wrapped around his ankle. "Aiii… I think it's broken." The engineer gasped. Sextus knelt down, fingers tugging at his friend's boot. Frontius turned a funny color, lips going white. "Don't…"
Sextus stopped messing with the laces, then slipped a knife from his belt. The heavy military leather resisted for a moment, then parted with a scraping sound. Sextus worked the remains of the hobnailed boot free, jaw clenching as he saw a purplish-black bruise around Frontius' ankle and shin. "It's bad," he bit out.
The earth quivered again and now a rolling series of crashing sounds, interspersed with thunderclaps, shook the air. Grunting, Sextus got a shoulder under Frontius, then staggered to his feet. The other engineer, hanging upside-down, croaked in alarm, then convulsed, vomiting. Sextus ignored the slick wet feeling on the back of his bare legs. He cast a look behind him, over his shoulder.
Smoke obscured the center of the Roman line. Black smoke billowed up from burning, damp wood. Clouds of dust were interspersed with the smoke and leaping flames intermittently lit the haze. Sextus blinked, unsure of his own eyes. Lightning jagged and ripped through the smoke, briefly illuminating something huge moving at the center of the conflagration. The engineer cursed, suddenly realizing what he was looking at. The distortion of scale was too vast to easily comprehend.
A colossal figure a hundred yards high plowed out of the smoke. Mangonel stones smashed against its chest, bursting with green fire. Clouds of arrows leapt up from the ground, clattering away from ebon-hued skin. A vast jackal head appeared from the smoke. Fire burst upon it like spring flowers-blossoming in a hundred radiant hues, then vanishing again. The thing chopped an enormous hand down and the earth shook. Sextus staggered, shifting his balance. A flare of unnamable color burst from the moving fist and siege engines blew apart in blue-black flame.
"Set is upon us," Sextus breathed, stunned. "The gods walk the earth!"
He turned, settling an unconscious Frontius upon his shoulders and staggered off down the road. The shape of the southern mirror tower loomed up ahead, only a half-mile away. It seemed intact, the morning sun gleaming on the polished shape of the disk in its cradle. Grim-faced Roman legionaries ran past, heading for the sound of battle.
Nephet groaned, pushing weakly at a smoking, charred timber pinning him among the dead. The old Egyptian's face was streaked with blood, his nose bleeding, thin fringe of hair plastered against a skull shining with sweat. His thin arm strained, then the square-cut timber lifted and clattered to the ground. Surprised, the priest looked up to see a powerful figure crouched over him.
"Lord Caesar!" Nephet turned his head and spit blood on the dusty ground.
"Get up," Aurelian growled, lifting the frail old man up with both hands. The Roman's eyes were narrow slits against bitter white smoke drifting through the ruins of the bastion. His armor was dented and scored with black streaks, his beard fouled with mud. "Can you stand? Can you fight?"
Nephet coughed, catching a fringe of the smoke hanging in the air. A sizzling crack-crack-crack roared overhead. The priest ducked, flinching away from the noise. Aurelian's fingers dug into his shoulders.
"Can you fight?" The Roman shook Nephet roughly. Memories flooded back, chilling the old priest's blood. He and the prince had rushed forward to the bastion, alarmed at the enormous noise and the flare of light. The old Egyptian had barely reached the wall in time to watch a conflagration unfold, then the earth heaved and something had smashed him to the ground.
"Yes." Nephet turned, leaning heavily on his staff. The side of one hand pressed against his brow. The skin felt hot, but touch served to focus his mind enough to descend once more into the maelstrom of the hidden world. My brothers! To me! The old priest sketched a glyph in the air, the mnemonic guiding his thought and will into the desired pattern. A pale, feeble radiance flickered into being around him-an incomplete, weak sphere of defense. Nephet reached out, his will winging across the battlefield, searc
hing desperately for his fellow priests. Sons of Horus, heed my call!
Destruction lay all around, echoing between the physical and the ghost shapes of the hidden.
A hundred-foot-wide section of the forward rampart was gone, reduced to jagged heaps of brick and ash. The remains of an ancient triumphal arch listed drunkenly to one side-the old gate had been completely filled in, making a strong point in the wall. Now the sandstone slabs were cracked and splintered, scattered over a sixty-foot-wide swath from the gate. The bastion opposite, where Nephet had been standing, was cloaked with smoke, watchtowers burning fiercely, a massive gouge torn out of the sloping earthen berm. Glassy slag puddled, shimmering with heat, among the wreckage. The tents inside were blown down and dead and wounded men lay scattered like grain discarded on a threshing floor.
Hurrying lights-the shapes of men-poured through the breach, surging forward into battle with struggling knots of legionaries, regrouping after the blast. Nephet struggled to think-the wound on the side of his head burned with cold fire-and took some heart to see the Roman soldiers rallying around their Legion standards. Furious ghosts and vengeful spirits clustered thick around the ancient banners, driving back the whiplash of fear and despair radiating out from the enemy. The thin cries of the newly dead bolstered the hearts of the living. Older, stronger shades crowded around the legionaries fighting in the wreckage, turning aside burning motes of misfortune flooding the hidden world.
As Nephet watched, one young centurion-fighting alone against three robed Persians-blocked a stroke, then ducked nimbly aside, warned by the spirit-shape of another, older, stronger centurion-perhaps centuries dead-who shadowed his every movement. Other ghosts flickered in the air, knocking aside Arab arrows and sling stones falling from the sky.
A vast shape, anchored by three burning stars, swung forward towards the second wall. Nephet staggered, looking upon the shape of the enemy. Part of his mind yammered in fear, faced with the horror of a god loosed upon the earth. Fool! shouted his conscious will, this is no god! They sleep, buried in the ice, imprisoned under the sea. This is illusion!
Set looked down upon him with blazing wolf-eyes, the head grown so large it blocked out the sky. The sun was reduced to a pale red disk, wreathed in smoke and the fume of battle. An ebon hand reached down, splintering the earth. Nephet felt his physical body topple over, but the Caesar Aurelian caught him in a powerful grip. The priest's attention turned away, summoning up power from the soil, from the stones, from the lifeblood of the Nile at his back.
Sons of Horus, to me! Swift thought winged across the battlefield.
This brought a second shock-worse than the first. Only a half-dozen minds responded, some faint and weak, some strong, approaching rapidly from the west. Are the others dead? Nephet called into the dark void. Then, at the edge of perception, through storms of anger, fear and despair, he caught the faint scent of panic and flight. The priest blazed bright with fury. They run? The mad fools! There is no escape now, not even in death.
Nephet whirled, those few companions rushing forward to join him.
Too late, old man. A sly tickling brushed against his consciousness. Nephet froze, startled by a vaguely familiar touch.
Bow before me, like these others, it whispered, and you will live.
The old priest settled his mind; calming his heart, letting fear wash away, sand spilling into the desert, leaving only unblemished stone. No, he answered into the void, seeing the enemy loom over him, three burning eyes blotting out the sun. I will not yield.
Khalid clambered across fallen brick and square-cut timbers. He'd snatched up a round shield from one of the fallen. The breach in the rampart was wide, but with hundreds of his men, now joined by a few Persian diquans in heavy armor, swarming through the gap, he found himself among a crowd. The Sahaba chanted as they picked their way forward in a loose, disorganized line.
Ah-la-la-la-la! The long, ululating wail raised the hackles on Khalid's neck, though he had ridden to battle with the men of the desert many times. Thin curtains of smoke rolled across the field, obscuring the enemy. Khalid trotted forward, fearless, and found himself on a rubble-strewn road of planks, looking down into a second dry canal. Staked fences crisscrossed the canal bed.
"To me, Sahaba!" he screamed, turning, waving the ebon blade. "Bannermen, to me!"
A green flag appeared among streaks of white fog, sword and crescent moon plain on the simple fabric. Khalid felt his heart swell to see the banner of his people. "Over here!"
Deep shouts belled out, then the rush of booted feet. Khalid whirled, the sword licking across the face of a Roman soldier. The legionary ducked, shoving a heavy, rectangular shield at the Arab. Khalid skipped back, feeling the planks twist uneasily beneath his feet. The Roman stabbed underhand, the triangular tip of his short blade slamming into the edge of Khalid's shield. The Arab hacked overhand and the sable edge of the blade rang away from the iron rim of the big scutum. Gasping for breath, Khalid parried another stab, then slashed at the man's feet. The shield interposed again, sending the point of the blade belling away.
A line of Romans appeared out of the smoke, moving shoulder to shoulder, their shields a solid wall of laminated wood and iron. The Sahaba howled, rushing forward, swords and spears glittering. The legionaries answered with a hoarse bark of rage, standing their ground, and a sharp melee resulted-blades and spear points darting as each side tried to gain the advantage. Two burly Arab spearmen pushed past Khalid, slamming twelve-foot pikes into the Roman shields. One shield slipped, exposing the man behind, and he screamed, taking an iron spear point in his armpit. Blood smeared the leaf-shaped blade and the Arabs yelled wildly, trying to push into the opening. The Roman soldier fell away, vomiting blood, to be trampled underfoot. Legionaries filled the gap, jostling shoulder to shoulder.
Khalid wiped his brow, catching his breath. The battle eddied around him, leaving him alone and unmolested for an instant. The vast shape of the jackal towered across the canal, wreathed in lightning, staggering under bursts of fire. A constant boom-boom-boom shook the air, deafening everyone. Khalid barely noticed now, his attention focused on staying alive for just another grain. His Sahaba were locked in a fierce, stand-up melee in the rampart breach. Roman soldiers crowded in on the roadway from either side of the gap, trying to pinch off their position. More Arabs scrambled forward over the rubble, but now Roman archers on the shattered ends of the rampart shot down at them as they ran.
A basso thwang echoed in the air and a six-foot-long bolt snapped out of the smoke, ripping through the ranks of the Arabs fighting in the breach. Khalid spun, then cursed. The jackal was writhing in flame and lightning, leaving the Roman bastions across the canal free to fire their siege engines into the crowd of Sahaba. We need more men, Khalid realized, stomach going cold. Or they'll crush us.
Blade firmly in hand, he darted off into the drifting smoke, running back towards the Persian lines.
The jackal swung round, tripartite eye blazing, and the air convulsed. Something sped at Nephet, a whirling disk of blue-black fire. Desperate, his hands slashed into a complex pattern. The shield of Athena flared sun-bright, threads of green fire leaping into the shimmering globe from earth, stone and sky. The black disk collided, shattering into ravening lightning with a howl of sparks. Nephet was thrown down, stunned by the blast. His shield wavered, splintered, then collapsed in azure rain. Shaking off momentary weakness, the old Egyptian surged up, staff stabbing at the enemy.
The colossal shape of the jackal plowed into the second wall, grappling with the weaker, newer, matrix of battle wards. Nephet wept to see how frail the anchors were, how weak the lattice vaulting up in the hidden world. He and the other priests had only worked on binding a ward of defense into the inner wall for a week. Surely not enough time to withstand this thing's power… Spirit flames roared around black limbs, the jackal's mouth gaping wide, spilling dirty gray mist. The god ground into the defense, brawny chest streaked with clinging fire, splintering stakes underf
oot, massive arms smashing through golden veils.
Muttering old words, passed down from priest to priest from the time of the Drowning, Nephet slammed his staff into the earth, fist jerking in the air, clutching at emptiness, then opening in a hard, sharp motion towards the shifting, immaterial titan. A jagged arc flashed in the air, arrowing into the thing's side. There was an efflorescence of rainbow color-blotting out the sun, casting wild shadows in all directions-and the jackal screamed, overcome. The shape toppled over, crashing against the failing pale gold wall. Cracks rippled across the ephemeral surface, then the wards closed, adapting to the blow, sliding together again.
Nephet gasped, feeling his old heart race, and found himself on all fours, sweat pouring from his thin body. That was too much, he thought vaguely. Mud under his fingers smoked and steamed. He was glowing, shedding a hot radiance from every pore. The pit of his stomach was cramping, his spine burning like a star. I've got to rest. Just for a moment…
The jackal shuddered, splitting into three indistinct, wavering shapes for an instant, then rushed back together again. Those few Roman thaumaturges still alive attacked, whirling white sparks igniting in the jackal's shadow shape. Brilliant rays lanced out from each impact, eating away at the shadow. Again, the jackal convulsed, a broken mirror showing three distorted images. Nephet raised his head, snarling in delight. Clutching the staff, he forced himself to his feet, though the ancient, well-burnished wood charred at his touch. Now we have it! he exulted. It's not one monster, but three magi!
Nephet felt another priest of Horus strike, then beheld a rippling distortion blur across the field, sweeping around the faint patterns of watchtowers, walls, the hot spike of a scorpion winding back to hurl an iron bolt into the Persian ranks. Swiftly, seeing his chance, the old Egyptian slashed the air with his staff, glowing green traces shining in the void as he etched a sign of power. A viridian glyph formed, spinning out of infinity, a triangle broken into three, then into three, then into… Nephet wrenched his perception away from the abyss opening before him. He felt thin, attenuated, and realized the native power in the earth around him had guttered out, exhausted by the conflagration. Oh, great god Horus, fill me with your strength! Strike down your old enemy, the father-murderer, the eater of the dead!
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