The storm of Heaven
( Oath of Empire - 3 )
Thomas Harlan
Thomas Harlan
The storm of Heaven
WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE
In the year 622, the Eastern Roman Empire was close to destruction, the capital of Constantinople besieged by the Avars in the West and Persia in the East. As told in The Shadow of Ararat, the Emperor of the East, Heraclius, and of the West, Galen Atreus, launched a daring attack into the heart of their Persian enemy. The half-mad Persian Shahanshah Chrosoes was taken unawares, and after great battles, he was defeated and his empire given as a wedding gift to the Eastern Prince Theodore. At the same time, while the two ancient powers strove to overthrow each other, two critical events transpired. First, in Rome, young Prince Maxian Atreus discovered an ancient thaumaturgic pattern-the Oath-constricting the lives and dreams of the Roman people. Aided by the Nabatean wizard and Persian spy Abdmachus, Prince Maxian embarked on an audacious quest to find the sorcerous power he needed to break down the lattices of the Oath and free the Roman people from their invisible slavery. Second, while the Prince exhumed and revivified Gaius Julius Caesar as a source of thaumaturgic power, a young Roman mage, Dwyrin MacDonald, was swept up in the chaos of the Eastern war.
Attempting to find and save his pupil, Dwyrin's teacher Ahmet left the ancient School of Pthames on the Nile and struck out into the Roman Levant. By chance, in the ancient, rock-bound city of Petra, Ahmet encountered an unexpected friend in the Mekkan pottery merchant Mohammed. Together, the teacher and the merchant found themselves in the service of Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra. At the urging of the Eastern emperor Heraclius, Zenobia and the princes of the Decapolis and Petra gathered an army to resist the advance of the Persian army, under the command of the Great Prince Shahin, into Syria. Unaware of Heraclius' intention to see the independent cities of the Decapolis destroyed while diverting Chrosoes' attention, Zenobia clashed with the Persians, was defeated and then besieged in Palmyra itself. Despite furious resistance, the City of Palms fell to the monstrous power of the sorcerer Dahak. Zenobia and Ahmet perished, and Mohammed escaped with only a small band of his followers through sheer luck.
While Persia collapsed, the Roman agent Thyatis, accompanied by the Khazar tarkhan Jusuf, entered the capital of Ctesiphon and stole away with mad Chrosoes' second wife, Empress Shirin, Jusuf's niece. Though she was supposed to deliver the Empress to Galen, Thyatis chose instead to disguise her escape and flee south, making a circuitous and eventful return to the Empire via southern Arabia, the East African coast and the black kingdoms of Meroe and Axum. A dangerous decision, not only for the terrible peril of the voyage, but to thwart the desires of her Emperor…
Not far away, in the ruined Imperial city of Dastagird, Prince Maxian found the last piece of his puzzle-a crypt holding the stolen, hidden remains of Alexander the Great. As he did with Gaius Julius Caesar, the Prince revivified the Macedonian and felt his power was at last sufficient to break the Oath strangling the Roman people.
In the year 623, as told in The Gate of Fire, the Roman armies of East and West returned home, and both nations rejoiced, thinking the long struggle against Persia and the Avar khaganate had at last come to an end. Great plans were laid, both by Heraclius and Galen, and many legionaries rested their weary feet. Yet, all was not well, either within the Empire or without. Heraclius' attempt to return home in triumph was spoiled by a sudden and unexpected illness. Galen's return was more joyful, for he found his wife, Helena, had borne him, at last, a son.
In Arabia the merchant Mohammed reached Mekkah to find his beloved wife, Khadijah, cold in the ground. Devastated, Mohammed climbed a nearby mountain and attempted to end his own life. As he stood poised between death and life, between the earth and sky, a power entered Mohammed, speaking to him from the clear air. The voice urged him to strive against the dark powers threatening mankind. Heeding this voice, Mohammed-after a brutal struggle in the city of his birth-set out with an army of his companions, the Sahaba, to bring the treacherous Emperor Heraclius to justice. To his surprise, he found many allies eager to overthrow the tyranny of the Eastern Empire. First, the rascal Khalid al'Walid, then the lords of Petra and Jerash and finally the exiled Queen of Palmyra, Zoe. With their aid, Mohammed raised the tribes and the cities of the Decapolis to war against Rome. Heraclius' treachery would be repaid with blood and fire.
Indeed, even in Persia the enemies of Rome did not lie quiet. The sorcerer Dahak escaped from the Roman victories with an army and he made his way to the ancient, remote fortress of Damawand, high in the mountains of Tabaristan. There, in a shrine once held holy by the priests of Ahura-Madza, the sorcerer began to muster a great power-not only of arms and men, but of darkness. Deep within the fortress lay a door of stone, behind which unguessed inhuman powers waited. Risking his life and the earth itself, Dahak opened the stone door to capture the power of the ancients. By these means, he shed the last of his humanity and became a true master of the hidden world. Flushed with strength, the sorcerer made his way to ancient Ecbatana and there-with the aid of his servant, Arad-placed the great general Shahr-Baraz on the throne of Persia. Now, a reckoning would come with Rome, and Persia's lost glory would be reclaimed.
In Rome itself, events rushed to a devastating conclusion. Prince Maxian, endowed with the strength of Julius Caesar's and Alexander's legends, strove again to overthrow the power of the Oath. Unable to sacrifice his brother Galen, the young Prince failed, nearly killing himself and wounding his companion Krista. Fleeing to the safety of his mother's ancestral estate on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, Maxian struggled with his conscience. Unwilling to wait for his decision, Krista fled, bringing news of the Prince's whereabouts and fatal plans to the Duchess de'Orelio-the Western Empire's spymaster and secret priestess of the Thiran Order of Artemis the Hunter. Her position reinforced by the return of Thyatis, Anastasia ordered the Prince murdered.
Thyatis, Krista and their companions found the Prince on the summit of Vesuvius and, after a deadly battle, failed to kill him. The Prince, mortally wounded, opened himself to the power in the mountain, bringing himself back from death and inciting the somnolent volcano to a staggering eruption, which destroyed the cities of Baiae, Herculaneum and Pompeii. Maxian escaped aboard his iron dragon, while Thyatis chose to plunge from the flying craft into the burning wasteland rather than become his servant. Only the two survived, all else having perished in the cataclysm. Far away, in Persia, Dahak became aware of the Prince and his growing power, realizing a rival was emerging to contest his control of the world of men…
CHAPTER ONE
The Port of Korinthos, 31 B.C.
The sea gleamed like spoiled glass, a flat murky green. Smoke from the town hung in the air, drifting slowly along the beach in thin gray wisps. The Queen, her pale shoulders covered by a rose-colored drape, stood in the surf. Tiny waves lapped around her feet, making silver bangles lift and fall with the water. The sea was as warm as a tepidarium pool.
"No man has ever set foot on the island." The Matron's tone was harsh.
"This is my son," said the Queen, her voice urgent. "I need your help."
Sweat beaded on the Greek woman's face, even in the shade of a wide parasol that her servants had lodged in the sand. The Matron stood on the polished plank deck of a small galley, riding low in the water a dozen yards away. Despite the Queen's entreaties, the gray, stiff-backed woman had refused to leave the ship and come ashore.
"We give shelter to women, grown and child, but never to men."
The Queen winced, for the harsh snap of the older woman's voice carried well over the water. There was no wind to break up the sound, or drown it with the crash of surf on the rocky shore.
The Matron turned, flipping the edge of her woolen cloak, black and marked with white checks, over her shoulder. The Queen flinched, feeling the rebuke in her bones. She turned, staring back up the beach to the awnings and pavilions of her camp. The bright colors of the pennants and the cloth that shaded her son and the waiting servants seemed dull and grimy in this still, hot air.
"Have I not given enough?" Despite her best effort, the Queen's voice cracked and rose, shrill and carrying. "Must I give up my son for your faith? He is all that remains of our dream-his father murdered, his patrimony stolen. Hide him for me… just for a few months, perhaps a year!"
The women in the galley's rowing deck, responding to the shrill whistle of a flute, raised their long leaf-bladed oars as one. The Matron's figure descended from the platform and paced, slowly, to the foredeck of the vessel. She did not turn or look back, and the angle of her head was canted towards the horizon. A single bank of oars dipped into the water, and the galley turned, swinging easily in the calm sea.
The flute trilled, and the ship slipped across the water, gaining speed with each flashing plunge of the oars.
The Queen felt great weariness crash down upon her, pressing on her shoulders with thick, gnarled fingers. She swayed a little, feeling the sand beneath her feet slip, but then righted herself. Her right hand clutched at a diadem around her neck, slim white fingers covering a golden disk filled with an eight-rayed star.
It would not do, she thought, to be carried up from the baleful shore by my servants.
– |The Queen walked in darkness, her head bent in weariness. A bare gleam of firelight from the bonfires by the ships touched a curl of hair. Now her feet were bare, the wet slippers long discarded, ruined by the salty water. At the very edge of the firelight she stopped and turned, staring out at the gloomy sea. It lay flat and still, windless, as it had done for days, stranding her fat-bellied troopships in the port.
"Your son is beautiful, daughter. I see him standing by the fire, light gleaming on his limbs."
The Queen stiffened, feeling the air grow chill. She raised her head sharply, nostrils flaring at the languid voice in the darkness. There was a woman, there in the shadow, just beyond the edge of the light. A rustle of cloth and a flash of white caught the Queen's eye as a hood was drawn back.
"Who…? I know you." The Queen's voice turned brittle and hard. "Why are you here?"
Laughter drifted, dying leaves in the fall, cascading down on chill autumn air. "You need me, Pharaoh, to save your son and your dream."
A hand came out of the darkness, thin and elegant, with long, tapering nails. Their surface winked in the dim firelight, glossy and black. Thin gold bracelets jingled a little as the woman stepped closer. The Queen raised her own hand sharply, though the imperious gesture seemed futile against the presence in the darkness. "I will not give him to you. I did not summon you. Go away."
The figure stopped and paused, and the Queen sensed a lean head turning in the night, considering her. A faint wind began to rise, brushing the Queen's curls and softly fluttering the silk draped around her shoulders. Pale red caught in the eye of the figure, gleaming with the bare echo of one of the bonfires.
"Then he will die, spitted on the blades of your enemies, or strangled in some cold cell. Is this your desire? To see your son placed on a pyre of scented wood? To see the flames leap up around his beautiful face?"
The Queen shuddered, feeling her gown cold as a shroud under her fingers.
"Give him to me," hissed the darkness, "and he will grow strong and powerful. He will learn many arts lost to the race of men… everything that you dreamed for him will come true…"
"No!" The Queen ran. Sand sprayed away from her feet, but the cold breath on her neck gave her feet wings.
Behind her, far from the firelight, a figure moved, gathering its consorts. Silently, on padded feet, they went away in the night. The pale woman turned on the height above the town, looking down upon the dim lights in the windows and the torches burning on the steps of the temples.
"So did old Pelias run," the woman mused, amusement stealing over her. "When his daughters came singing, bearing a cauldron of ruddy, red iron…" She settled her cloak on thin shoulders and turned her face to the stars in the dark sky, smiling.
CHAPTER TWO
The Yarmuk Plateau, Southern Syria Coele, 624 A.D.
"This is it! Form up by ranks, you lot!"
Colonna, centurion of the Third Cyrene, wiped his face with a dirty white cloth wound around his helmet. The sun had risen only moments ago, wallowing up huge and pale orange in the eastern sky, but the air was already hot. The Roman tried to spit but his mouth was too dry. Around him, legionaries staggered to their feet, strapping on belts and pulling on rivet-studded helms.
Dust puffed into the sky, forming a slow-moving, yellowish cloud over the stirring army. Orders had come before dawn, and Colonna, at least, had seen his men fed before the chill of night fell away. Thousands of soldiers shuffled into formation on dry grass and stony ground. Mindful of the flags of his banda commander, Colonna walked along the line of his men. He kept his face grim and impassive, but in his heart he sighed, seeing painfully young faces squinting out from under metal helmets.
A fresh army; those were the words that the Imperial Prince Theodore had used when they had first landed at the great port of Caesarea Maritima, down on the Judean coast. One destined for victory and glory.
"You men, listen close." Colonna stopped, settling a hard glare on his face. He scowled at the legionaries in his squad and paced slowly back down the line. They were fit enough, with kit barely a year old and clean weapons. Their ranks were trim; his hobnailed boot had been on their backsides enough in the last month. The baby fat was gone, burned away in the Syrian sun as the Imperial Army marched endlessly, searching for the enemy.
"This is the day. No more running up hill and down valley, trying to bring these bastards to heel. This is the day they stand and fight."
Colonna half turned, shading watery-blue eyes with a sunburned hand. He looked east, squinting in the glare of the morning sun. The land was open and uneven, marked with tumbled hills of black rock and shallow washes filled with scrawny trees. A slight slope descended from the Imperial camp, down toward a dry watercourse. Beyond that an equally gentle slope rose up, thick with tufted grass and scattered fist-sized stones. There, anchored by a high tor of crumbling black rock on the left, and by the edge of the plateau on the right, massed the enemy. A lone outcropping of dark stone rose up just behind the enemy's right wing.
The centurion pointed, one cracked finger stabbing at the foe.
"Look, lads." His voice was soft and some of the men bent forward to hear him. "There they are, this rabble that we have chased about, these bandits that the Prince rails against. Do you see them?"
None of the men turned to look. Colonna had a quick reward for rash action!
"Arrayed in ranks, four divisions, with flags and banners and horns. Half our number, if that… Do you see them? They stand ready for battle. We are still knocking the sleep from our eyes yet they are already in battle line…"
The ouragos sighed, settling the lorica of overlapping iron scales on his shoulders, blunt fingertips brushing over his sword, his bow case, the edge of his layered oaken shield. The scutum's painted leather cover was freshly oiled and he hoped it would not crack in the heat of battle. There would be a struggle today.
A deep note sounded in the air, the drone of a bucina in the hands of one of the signalers.
"Squad, face forward!" Colonna tugged the cheek plates of his helmet down and tightened them snug under his chin in one motion. "Ready at the walk!"
All around the centurion, the Roman army was in motion, shaking out into line of battle, men jogging slowly forward in great square blocks. Cavalry thundered past, raising more dust. The horsemen wore long striped robes an
d chainmail glinted beneath. Thin lances lay across the shoulders of the horses. Within a moment, the Ghassanid auxiliaries were gone, trotting down the slope, angling towards the left.
Colonna looked sideways, seeing the flags of his banda commander rise and fall. He raised a hand and chopped it towards the enemy. "Forward!"
– |"Lord of the Wasteland, O power that raises the wind and moves the stars in their courses, strength that brings the crop from barren ground, I submit myself to your will. You have spoken from the clear air, and I have listened. Now, our enemy is before us; now our strength will test his. In your hands, I leave victory or defeat. I am your servant, fill me with your desire."
The man bent his seamed forehead to a plain rug laid down on the rocky soil. For a moment he rested there, feeling the peace of early morning. He put from his mind the rising sound of men and horses and metal clattering against metal. He closed his ears to shouted commands and hooves thudding on the ground. In his mind he cradled the silence of the predawn air, when he walked alone among the sleeping men, feeling the wind rising in the east, rushing over the land, fleeing the coming sun.
In a single smooth movement he rose, drawing up the rug with a thick, scarred hand. He blinked, unseeing, and minded only the business of brushing dirt and grass stems from the woven fabric in his hand. When he was done, he smoothed down his beard, ruefully fingering thick tendrils of white creeping among the black. His body still felt young and strong, thick with muscle and hardened by long years of travel on the fringes of the Empire, but his beard was that of an elder, a chieftain…
Fool! he chided himself. You are a chieftain now, a king…
"Lord Mohammed?" The voice was low, but the man smiled at its soft, husky quality and the carrying power hiding within. He turned, raising a bushy eyebrow in question. "Yes, Lady Zoe?"
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