"We walk," Nicholas said, moving down the hill, still keeping low. "First to Praetonium and then a ship to Cyrenaicea or Rome herself."
Vladimir stared after him for a moment, then shook himself from head to toe, like a wet dog, and followed.
CHAPTER FORTY
The Nile Canal Gate, Alexandria
"It's your turn." Frontius sat with his back against pitted old sandstone, squinting sideways at his friend. Both men were in a scrap of shade thrown by a merlon rising from the tower wall. The sun was a huge, brassy disk in the morning sky, its heat magnified by sodden delta air.
"I think not!" Sextus replied, between gulps of tepid brown water from a cup. A bucket sat beside him, wedged into the corner of a stone embrasure. Two more buckets filled with river sand completed the fire-brigade station. "Who was cutting the cables on the Heliokonpolis bridge while the Jackal came on at us, thundering like the gods and spitting fire?"
"You," Frontius allowed, closing his weak eye. Sweat oozed in a steady, slow stream down the side of his nose. "And handily done too. But I took the last look-see. It's your turn now."
Groaning, Sextus peered over the edge of the embrasure, helmet crammed down tight on his head, a sweat-dark leather strap biting into his stubbled chin. The sky growled and rumbled with muted, distant thunder, but there were no clouds on the horizon. Instead, a heavy grayish haze hung over the fields and canals facing the city. The engineer's armor clamped tight against his chest and upper arms, the metal burning with sweat. He blinked a trail of salt out of his eyes, searching the irregular, rumpled landscape for the enemy.
The irregular wind out of the north fluttered to a stop. A suffocating pressure began to build in the humid air.
All along the Roman lines, a sloping, packed earthen berm two miles long, faced with slabs of scavenged stone and brick, riddled with sharpened stakes, topped by a fighting platform reinforced with palm logs, mud-brick and irregularly placed towers, the Legions tensed. Every man crouched down, pressing himself into the muddy corduroy walkway. Sextus counted himself lucky, on one hand, for their position stood at the Nile Canal gate-a proper fortification of sandstone and cement, long predating the earthworks-and on the other, he was shivering with fear, for the exposed bastion of the gate towers were sure to draw the full attention of the enemy.
The engineer had seen the strength of the Persian sorcerers-more than once-and the rush of blood in his veins was loud in his ears. A half-mile of lumpy ground, denuded of vegetation, buildings and every scrap of brick, stone and wood faced the wall. Flocks of white birds pecked among the waving, knee-high grass. Sextus wiped sweat from his eyes, searching for the Persian lines, for the glint of watery sunlight on spears and helms…
There!
The air twisted, a monstrous shape winging towards the Roman lines. The heat-haze rippled, bunching and roiling around a swift sparkling mote speeding like Apollo's arrow towards the gate. The birds spurted up from the ground in a panicked cloud of white feathers. Screeching in alarm, they darted away across the bobbing grass.
"Down!" Sextus screamed, kissing the stone. Every man in the tower did the same, eyes screwed shut against the expected flare of brilliance. A wild rushing sound ripped overhead, then a colossal thwang reverberated through stone and air. Sextus' eyes flew open in surprise, staring up, and his mind-normally quick, even in exhaustion-took a moment to grasp what he saw.
A furious black spark whirled and sputtered in the air. Curlicues of lightning danced around the edges, illuminating-just for a fraction of a grain-a queer distortion in the air. The shuddering pocket of flame flared, leaping across some invisible surface and the engineer gaped to see the ravening destruction unfold, spilling away from him, lighting the sky, the tower and the rampart for thousands of yards in either direction, but held in the air like a stone distending a taut cloth. A rumbling, deafening crack-crack-crack rocked the engineer, throwing him to his knees, but the hissing, spitting destruction he expected to rip across the top of the tower, incinerating the defenders, cracking stone, scorching their scorpions and ballistae, stalled in the wavering air. Flame roared away, flooding down into the ground, into the foundations of the tower, like water spilling from a millrace.
In the blink of an eye, the blast was gone, leaving only sizzling earth and clouds of steam boiling up from damp fields. Sextus shook his head, trying to clear his mind, then he saw the previously empty plain surging with the enemy. The northerly wind resumed, stirring turgid air.
"Here they come!" The engineers leapt to their ballista. Frontius scrambled up on the far side of the machine, grasping hold of a metal-faced plate set in the firing port of the wall. Sextus took hold of a smooth wooden handle with his left hand, then seized hold of the firing lever with the other. Frontius, ducking, dragged the metal plate aide, revealing the fields and the road below.
Thousands of Persians and Greeks swarmed forward, shrieking war cries, running across the rumpled field towards the wall. Nearly every man, Sextus saw in the brief instant he spared to survey the attack, bore a shield and they came on in two distinct waves. The first ranks were men with climbing ladders, shields, axes, long spears-then the second were archers, already advancing in staggered line, some men lofting arrows towards the defense, the others drawing shaft to string as they jogged forward. The sky darkened with flights of shafts.
On the road itself, a three-story-high tower rumbled forward on massive wooden wheels. A huge crowd of Persians packed the road behind the siege engine, pushing for all they were worth. On the fighting top, a dozen men in glittering, head-to-toe armor crouched behind wicker and hide shields. Sextus cursed, dragging the heavy ballista up and around. A four-foot-long wooden shaft lay in the aiming groove, tipped by six inches of triangular iron. Wooden slats flared from the butt-end of the bolt.
"Aiming!" Sextus cried, narrowing his left eye as he sighted against a curved iron brace set above the bolt. Regularly spaced marks were etched in the metal. His right hand tightened on the lever. Frontius and one of the boys assigned to the engine scuttled aside, taking up positions behind and beside each torsion arm, hands light on matching wheels. Another legionnaire was ready at the engineer's shoulder with a second bolt.
The top of the fighting tower clanked into sight through the iron loop. Sextus slammed the lever down. Oiled metal squealed in release and the big triple-corded cable snapped with a sharp thwack against rope-padded stays. The entire ballista rocked violently forward. The bolt flicked away, faster than Sextus' eye could follow. He stayed focused on the Persian siege tower, ignoring the frenzied activity of his crew as they reloaded.
The bolt smashed through a wicker screen and into a Persian soldier's breastplate. The man sprang backward, as if by surprise, jerked by the massive blow. The soldier behind him tried to duck aside, but the bolt tore through the diquan's chest, out through his right shoulder and punched into the second man's mailed chest with a ringing tonk!
"Range one hundred yards!" Sextus barked. "Three-quarters tension!"
Frontius and the other soldier at the iron wheels immediately began cranking them 'round as fast as they could. Sextus waited, watching the siege tower rumble closer, listening to the thunderous boom of Persian drums, the splintering rattle of arrows hitting the parapet, sweating more from fear now than heat. His eye caught another shining mote speeding through the air towards the tower, leaving a coiling tail of disturbed air behind. He clenched his teeth, willing his bladder to hold firm. The clank-clank-clank of the winch jumping back with each turn of the iron wheels filled his ears.
Somewhere out on the plain, Old Snake's voice raged, summoning hellish powers to ripple the air, draw thunder from a clear sky, sending destruction upon his enemies. Sextus had never seen the face of his enemy-few living Romans had seen any of the Persian magi-but every legionary, from the lowest servant to the Caesar himself, knew the sound of their voices. Every soldier had drawn their own mental picture of the tormenting sorcerers, fueled by the shock of battle and the grud
ging, exhausted respect earned by both sides. The disaster at Pelusium had nearly broken the Romans, but they had rallied to duty and honor and a bedrock faith in the Eternal Empire.
The brilliant mote slammed into some invisible barrier in the murky air and again Sextus saw the sky twist and deform. Azure tongues of flame lapped out in a twisting cone and the mote blossomed into a blinding flash. A wave of heat rolled over the top of the tower, but the furnace blast was attenuated and weak, barely a fraction of its full power. Again, the unleashed power wicked down into the earth, spilling like molten iron across the face of the old towers.
"Hah!" Sextus raised a fist against the malefic power hidden out in the haze-shrouded fields. "Rome builds to last, serpent!"
Old Snake was their most implacable foe-a cruel, hateful voice filling the heavens with abominable sounds, sending fire and choking smoke, or crawling death, or simple annihilation in a curdling green blast-but the Crow was little better, a furious apparition, a woman's voice shrieking in hate, her actions shrike-swift. There was no mercy in her, though the legionaries dying in the mud, or fighting hand-to-hand with the Arab and Greek fanatics wearing her colors, swore she was the beauty of the night, rather than the day. There were other lesser lights, the sly Hawk who wrapped the Persians in smoke and mist, hiding their movements from all but the most discerning eyes, and the formidable Jackal, whose blunt, irresistible attack had smashed the Fourth Scythica into oblivion at Heliokonpolis, coming within a hair of seizing the great bridge before the span had plunged, foaming, into the Nile channel.
Sextus could not say why he knew the face of the enemy-save their will was so strong, their awesome presence so widely felt, every man agreed upon their name and number.
"Loaded!" barked the soldier at his side, snapping Sextus' attention back to the moment at hand. A fresh bolt lay in the channel, the twin windlasses drawn back, Frontius shouting at him, stepping aside. Sextus sighted, saw the siege tower eighty yards away, swung the aiming handle a fraction, then slammed the release lever down again.
The ballista rocked forward, cable slammed into padded rope, another bolt flashed toward the enemy. Frontius leapt back to his wheel, cranking for all he was worth. Tanned muscles worked under a linen tunic and Sextus watched the jerking progress of the windlass bar with eager eyes.
The screams and shouts below the tower changed timbre and the first Persians scrambled up the sloping embankment, weaving their way through a forest of sharpened stakes and tangling brush. Legionaries on the fighting platform began to hurl stones and javelins, or shoot at point-blank range with bows. Turbaned men toppled and fell, sliding on the greasy, soft slope. More scrambled past, their war cry ringing against the heavens.
Allau ak-bar!
The siege tower rumbled on, face studded with arrows. Flames licked among the hides and wicker shields. A corpse fell from the fighting top, limbs loose in death, to plunge into the mass of soldiery crowding forward below. Sextus' hand danced impatiently on the firing lever, waiting for the bolt to slide home.
A third and fourth wave of Persians, Greeks and Arabs swarmed out of the fields, loping forward past the corpses of their fellows, a waving forest of steel spear points and wild, mad faces. A corner of Sextus' mind measured the roaring wall of sound, the mass of the enemy and realized their main weight had fallen here, on the old gate.
Right in the thick of it, aren't we?
"Loaded!" shouted the legionary. Again, Sextus adjusted his aim, squinting, sweat streaming into his eyes. His hand slammed down on the lever.
Caesar Aurelian, his dented, chipped armor streaked with rust, jogged up a log-paved ramp. His Praetorians paced him in a rough square, their gear equally worn, faces blank with fatigue. Hard experience had taught them to set aside their crimson cloaks and distinctive horsetail helmets. Like Aurelian, they wore only the simple armor of a legionary, without signs or flashes of rank. The aquilifer ran alongside, his golden eagle wrapped in cloth and held at his shoulder. No Roman would fight without the sign and sigil of the city behind him, but raising the aquila on this battlefield would only invite dangerous attention.
The top of the battlement was crowded with armed men, both those struggling on the fighting platform, stabbing or shooting at the Persians swarming up the slope below, and wounded men lying or sitting on the plank road behind. Medical orderlies trotted down the ramp, canvas stretchers in hand. Aurelian forced himself to look away, catching a glimpse of a young man-no more than a boy-being carried past, one hand clutched desperately over the stump of his arm, blood oozing through dirty brown fingers. A wooden dowel was slowly splintering between his teeth.
A ripping sound smote the air and everyone not actually locked in hand-to-hand combat on the wall ducked. Aurelian crouched down, watching with narrowed eyes as the sky quivered and flashed, streaked with carnelian flame. Heavy clouds of smoke drifted across the battlement, making vision difficult. Some of the clouds were tinged yellow or green. As they passed, men choked and fell to their knees. A few died, vomiting black fluid, a steady wind out of the north holding back the latest Persian deviltry.
"It's Old Snake for sure," one of the Praetorians hissed, rising from the ground. Aurelian nodded.
Shielded on both sides by men with heavy, laminated shields, the Caesar climbed up onto the fighting platform. Two legionaries moved aside automatically as he grasped one of the support poles and squeezed between them. Below, the Praetorians glanced around nervously, sweating with fear at the exposure their commander risked. Aurelian kept his head below the top of the rampart, glancing quickly to the north.
The fortification stretched towards the sea, curving slightly to follow the line of the ancient Ptolemaic wall. Smoke boiled from burning buildings behind the line and he could see men fighting here and there. Arrows slashed through the air in both directions, but in comparison to the conflagration around the Nile Gate towers, the rest of the front was quiet.
To the south, Aurelian saw much the same-the line of the wall studded with smoke and activity, then the glittering waters of Lake Mareotis on their flank. Again, he cursed the Persians and their fleet of river barges. Against another enemy, the lake would be a broad moat protecting the southern side of the city. Now, he was forced to keep nearly an entire Legion back, deployed along the shore to prevent landings behind the main wall.
A brilliant flare of light cracked overhead and men screamed in fear. Aurelian's head whipped around and he saw a section of the nearer tower burning furiously. Some kind of clinging flame dripped down battered, scored stone, heavy black smoke rolling up in oily waves. A siege catapult atop the tower burned as well. A man, wrapped in flame, plunged from the height, mouth open in a soundless, flame-encompassed scream. The prince blanched, eyes swinging to the sky, but then he realized the catapult itself had broken a torsion arm, spilling naphtha across the stone platform.
Bless the gods, the prince thought wildly, it was only a fire arrow!
A frail shield protected the legionaries fighting on the battlements and towers. A thin, gossamer veil standing in the hidden world between mortal men and the full might of the Persian sorcerers. Those few remaining Roman thaumaturges were cloistered back in the heart of the city, sweating with effort to sustain the pattern of wards and defenses lining the rampart. By sheer luck, Aurelian had made two critical, seemingly unrelated decisions regarding the defense of the city.
First, he had ordered his new fortifications built atop the foundation of an ancient wall. Unbeknownst to him, the intricate patterns of defense laid down during the time of Ptolemy the Savior, the first Macedonian king of Egypt, remained intact, though weakened by the theft of the wall stones themselves. Still, like begat like, and the new Roman wall inherited a measure of the ancient strength.
Second, the disaster at Pelusium had laid low so many thaumaturges and priests, Aurelian had shipped them all back to convalesce in Alexandria. The horrendous retreat across the delta, despite the horrific casualties suffered by his legionaries, had not
cost him a single thaumaturge. Stunned by the strength of their enemy at Pelusium, the priests had labored furiously to strengthen the ancient ward line ringing the city.
Still holding, Aurelian prayed, watching the queer distortion in the sky.
A basso roar of anticipation boomed beyond the wall as the Persians reacted. Aurelian popped his head up, face grim. The old highway was littered with wreckage. Two siege towers had come within a dozen paces of the walls and both were still burning furiously. Thousands of Persians swarmed below, sending up flight after flight of arrows. As Aurelian watched, one of the burning towers toppled away from the road, pushed by a forest of hands. In its place, a heavy ram rolled forward on a wooden frame, pushed by lines of men in full armor, silver battle masks down.
The sharp twang of a ballista bolt cut through the din, firing from the remaining tower. A Persian pushing the ram toppled, struck through. Stones and burning pitch rained down in sheets of flame. The dead carpeted the ground and the wounded crawled among corpses, desperate to escape the rain of destruction. Persian orderlies dragged away those who might live, or cut the throats of men wounded beyond succor.
Aurelian ducked back down, then slid from the fighting step. "They've a ram," he barked to his guardsmen. He waved sharply for his aide. "Phranes, get down from here and find the tribune commanding those two cohorts of the First on reserve in this sector. Get him up and into the gatehouse immediately. You lot, with me!"
Ignoring the anxious expressions of his guardsmen, Aurelian jogged along the rampart, heading for the rising iron-kettle din of battle around the smoke-shrouded towers. As he ran, the prince loosened the spatha bouncing at his waist and settled the grip on his shield. It was clear to him the Persians were throwing their full weight at the gate and by the gods, he intended to stand with his men, not hide in some tomb down in the city. Left behind, Phranes cursed wearily, long face twisted into a grimace and then ran off down the ramp past a constant stream of wounded descending towards the hospital.
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