"Vlad, what do you see?"
"A pillar of fire striding across the plain." Vladimir choked out the words. "It walks like a giant! Our men are running. They are being struck down by the lightning!"
Dwyrin's fingers dug into the Walach's fur cloak. He was so tired he could barely stand up. Both legs were trembling. "Vlad, you must take care of my body. I am going to… stop that thing. My spirit may not come back, but don't leave my body behind!"
"I understand." Vladimir couldn't tear his eyes away from the storm of lightning and roiling smoke darkening the plain, but his powerful arms hoisted the boy up onto his back, holding him as if he were a cub being carried across a rushing stream. "I won't leave you."
Dwyrin closed his eyes again, veins in his forehead throbbing, breath quick and shallow. Fire beckoned, the flame that burned at his heart.
– |Mohammed raised his hand, a booming roar of thunder echoing his motion. His eyes rolled up, spittle drooled from the side of his mouth. Lightning leapt from his fingers, ripping across the panicked mob of Roman legionaries. Hundreds of men were dying in the motion, shrieking in fear, their cloaks bursting into flame, skin charring. Arcs of violent purple light leapt from sword to cuirass to spear, setting cloth and leather afire. The sky darkened with swirling clouds, and fires raged across the plain, sending up pillars of white smoke. The sun faded, shrouded in fumes.
Under him, the mare trembled and shook from the tips of her ears to the end of her tail, unable to move. Thunder cracked and rolled in a constant shattering roar overhead. The Roman thaumaturges were stricken down in the first moment of the attack. Now the Western legionaries fled before him. The entire Legion facing the charge of the Arab qalb had been slammed aside by the weight of their arms, then scattered by this sudden apparition.
Bow down, idolaters! Bow down before the true God!
The voice from the clear air made the earth shake, collapsing those few buildings still standing in the old suburbs of the city. Mohammed seemed to be at a great height, striding over the field, seeing the running men as tiny ants fleeing his shadow. He raised his other hand and winds lashed the plain, springing from boiling black clouds. Lightning stabbed down, leaving burning trails in the air, tearing great fiery craters in the ground.
Here is the wrath that was promised to the unbeliever!
Mohammed was distantly aware the horse under him was dying, her brave old heart suddenly failing. His physical self toppled to the ground, but he had no need of such a thing anymore. The power that spoke from the mountaintop, the Lord of the Wasteland, had entered him. He had no need of anything.
If you do not follow the righteous path, then the fires of Hell await…
A blast of fire rocked Mohammed back. Orange and red flames raged around him, enveloping his towering body, fire eating away at his phantasmal limbs. In an instant he was no longer a giant figure of smoke and lightning, but a man lying on the ground, staring at the sky in a daze. Khalid and his guardsmen were huddled around him, trying to burrow into the earth. Mohammed staggered up, head ringing with the echo of that titanic voice.
"What… what was that?" He stared around, gaze suddenly settling on a point of brilliant orange light to the southeast, near the gates of the city. Great drifts of dark smoke blew across the field, driven by eddying winds. Everywhere before him there was the litter of war: spears, arrows sticking up from the ground, twisted bodies, the corpses of horses, smashed helmets, discarded shields and bits of armor. The Romans seemed to have disappeared, though scattered fires plumed up puffy white smoke, obscuring everything. "What happened?"
Something moved in the air, rushing towards him. Mohammed grasped for his sword, but the ebon blade was gone, lost among the tufted grass and wheat stubble. Shouting defiantly, he flung up his hand.
The air boomed like a great gong struck in the nave of some colossal temple. The clear air rippled and shook, wavering like the heat above a forge. Flame bloomed out of nothing, darting to the left and right. Mohammed stared in surprise, seeing the grass leap into flame in a half-circle before him. There was a power set against the Quraysh, something on the far hill. Steeds of flame rushed across the sky towards him, burning figures on their backs, hurling spears of light.
The air shook again as glowing bolts crashed into the invisible barrier around him. Mohammed staggered back, stunned, hands grasping at the air. He cried out, distraught, "Where is the blade of night?"
The sound fell flat on his ears. Khalid grasped his boot, shouting up at him. Mohammed could hear nothing. He was deaf. Flame washed over the clear dome and he could feel tremendous heat beating against his face.
"No," Mohammed said, stepping forward. The fire failed and died as he advanced, snuffed out by some invisible power radiating from him. "I will not yield to you."
The burning mote on the hill flashed again, and again. The air convulsed between them and Mohammed shouted in defiance, striking with his fist at the air. A thunderous crack answered his motion and black clouds swept forward across the sky. This time, he could feel the power in the air and the earth, he could feel the strength of the Merciful and Compassionate One in him, guiding his thoughts, bending its will upon this enemy.
The sky lit from horizon to horizon with a blast of light. Lightning jagged down from a dark and boiling sky. At Mohammed's feet, Khalid still clutched at his boot in desperation, stunned by a shattering sound rocking the world. Patik was clinging to the other boot, weeping mindlessly.
– |A burning indigo bolt leapt across the sky, high over Rufio's head. The Greek flinched and looked away, though the boom that followed nearly threw him to the ground. The searing afterimage of dark lightning etched across his vision, but he regained his feet.
"Fall back," he screamed into the howling wind. He turned, sword bare in his hand, and gestured violently at the Faithful. The Emperor's icon gleamed, reflecting odd lights and fires burning on the plain. "Fall back into the city!"
Rufio ran ahead, pushing and shoving at the men on the road, clearing a path for the standard. Thousands of men and horses blocked his way, stunned and paralyzed by the conflagration in the sky. The Greek pushed through them as fast as he could, fleeing the battle between gods.
"Retreat! Retreat!" Tears streamed down his face, lit by the staccato flare of lightning. "Fall back!" Around him, slowly at first, the Eastern troops began to move. Within moments a huge mob was pouring through the broken teeth of the Arab wall, flooding down the road leading to the massive shape of the Great Gate.
Among them, the red cloaks of the Faithful stood out like clots of blood in the darkness.
– |Near the middle of the plain, a half-mile from the conflagration of smoke and lightning and burning fields, Shahr-Baraz stood, helmet under one arm, the wind eddying around him. Bursts of light washed over him, throwing his hooked nose in sharp relief, shadowing his eyes. Black clouds blotted out the sun, throwing everything into a supernal gloom, but he remained, witness to the fury of the gods. His mailed hand slowly smoothed one jutting mustache, twisting the end to a point, then the other.
His army cowered, lines of spearmen and archers hugging the earth, wailing and weeping. Only a few of the officers even dared to crouch, staring up at the mammoth half-seen figures battling in the murky air. The clibanarii were already fleeing back to the north, their horses uncontrollable. Many of the diquans had been thrown to the ground and limped or crawled in search of some kind of safety. Even the King of Kings' officers were huddled in the lee of his blowing cloak, clutching the ground, their eyes averted from the dreadful sky.
But the Boar did not look away, though the air before him burned and curdled, distorted by the powers struggling in the ether. Fires reflected in his eyes, leaping up from the shattered land. He watched and waited, idly wondering who would triumph. Shahr-Baraz thought it very amusing his victory did not hinge on the success of either power.
– |Fire licked across the sky, silhouetting the clouds with a pulsing red glow. Mohammed flinched, taking a s
tep back. None of the furious barrage of flame, smoke and shining bolts had broken through the clear shield protecting him. He felt the unseen power that shifted the tides in their courses moving in tandem, a strange partner in this struggle. Effortless strength seemed to fill his limbs, making his eyesight and hearing keen. Testing this power, Mohammed grasped at the sky, feeling storm and wind move at his command.
Thunder boomed in the clouds, presaging a brilliant crack of lightning leaping from earth to sky. Distantly, the Quraysh felt his enemy shudder, stricken by the blow. A flare of orange light lit up the walls of the city and the circumvallation. Mohammed smiled, feeling a giddy rush of pleasure. He could move his hand just so and…
Rain roared down out of the sky, mixed with hail and howling wind. The grassy fields flattened down before the gusts. Heavy droplets spattered on the broken walls of the old farmhouses. Mohammed stabbed out a hand, shouting. Lightning flickered, arcing from cloud to cloud, lighting them with a sullen yellow glow. A mammoth cyan bolt stabbed from the ground, enveloping the wavering orange sphere on the distant wall. Mohammed felt his enemies' defense crack, weakening. He could feel the terror of the Roman soldiers, struggling through the torrential downpour, the ground turning to queasy black mud with every step.
Rain fell around him, too, but here within the circle of this invisible protection it was a gentle cooling mist. The Quraysh laughed in delight, thinking of the summer storms of his homeland. "You are weakening, my enemy. I think you are nearly spent."
He clenched his fist, will pressing on the sky, the clouds, the earth. A rolling series of blasts shook the ground, a howling cauldron of fire and lightning and hail converging on the sphere of orange light. Abruptly, like a wick being pinched, the light went out. Across the distance, Mohammed could feel the struggling, fierce will that opposed him suddenly fail. There was a wink of orange flame and then only rain and darkness. The fires burning across the field sizzled down to smoke and ash, drenched by the towering thunderheads sweeping across the sky.
You are finished! Mohammed thought. I will crush the last breath…
Distantly, his physicality heard the words "Now! He's done it!"
Then a blinding crack of pain burst behind his eyes and Mohammed, Lord of the Quraysh, Master of the Sahaba, crumpled to the ground, blood seeping from a fierce purplish bruise behind his left ear. As he fell, there was a curious sensation of distance between his body and his mind. His spirit turned, looking down from a great height, and saw his body sprawled on the grass, the powerful figure of the man Patik looming over his body. Khalid was crouched over Mohammed, hands upon his face.
An arrow? Mohammed was confused. He reached out for his body, seeking to rise and stand and see the desolation of his enemies. There was nothing there. Darkness suddenly flooded from the ground, covering the earth. Mohammed cried out, reaching into the void.
O Lord of the World, where are you? Have you…
Then oblivion.
– |Khalid rolled back the white-bearded man's eyelid. Rain drummed down out of a black sky, coupled with gusts of wind blowing heavy drops at right angles to the ground. The young man grinned, his teeth white in the darkness.
"I could not have planned it better myself!" He stood, back to the wind, and gestured to Patik. His guardsmen rose, making a solid circle of bodies around them. "Quickly, now, before the Sahaba notice."
The Persian nodded, pulling a length of gleaming silk from his belt. Patik unfolded the cloth, then unfolded it again and then again. With each iteration, the size doubled until it easily covered the body lying sprawled on the ground. Deftly, Patik laid the silk on the ground, then rolled Mohammed's body onto the cloth.
"Hurry!" Khalid hissed, digging into a bag that he carried at his belt. "Faster!"
The stoic Persian ignored the younger man's command, making sure he tucked the Arab's hands and feet gently onto the rectangle. Once the body was suitably arranged, he folded half of the cloth over, completely covering Mohammed from head to toe. Then, working with precise, ordered motions, Patik folded the long length of silk over, then over again. In an instant, the cloth was once again a small square in his hand. This he put into the pouch at his belt. He was sweating heavily, though the driving rain washed the salt from his face and arms.
Khalid knelt on the muddy grass, his hands busy with a length of dark red twine coiled around a wooden spool. With one hand he drove the spool into the soft ground near where Mohammed's head had been. With the twine fixed, he spun off a long length of the cord and swiftly arranged the twine on the ground in the outline of a man. Bending close over the muddy grass, he blinked rain out of his eyes and twitched sections of the twine into a more accurate shape.
Patik stood over him, shielding Khalid from the worst of the rain and hail sputtering out of the dark clouds. Visibility across the plain was poor, now reduced to only a few hundred feet. Khalid rose up, still on his knees, and fumbled a stoppered steel bottle from his belt. Turning his head away and gritting his teeth, the young man sprinkled black dust on the muddy ground within the shape described by the twine.
Vapor boiled up out of the ground, writhing like a forest of snakes. An ominous groaning sound issued from the earth and Khalid backed away, making a sign of warning. The mud heaved, cracking open, fumes and smoke issuing forth. The young Arab made a horrible face at the foul odor. Then the clots of mud and broken earth and rainwater began to slide gelatinously together. Within the space of one or two grains, the mud and grass had congealed into the shape of a man. A tall man, broad shouldered, with a long white beard lying across his chest.
Tendrils of grass crawled across the face, slithering into eyes, nose and ears. Rain sluiced across the naked body, washing away the mud and dirt. Fumes and smoke settled on the cold dead flesh, seeping into the pores and crevices of the body. Blood congealed out of the air, marking a wound on the muscular chest.
Khalid stood, looking down, silhouetted against the storm-wracked sky. His face was impassive, shadowed against the darkness. "So are the Makzhum revenged upon the Quraysh. Put a cloak on him, then lift him up." The young Arab thought that he could feel his father and his grandfather looking over his shoulder, pleased.
Patik and the others crowded around the body, fitting boots on its feet, a tunic, lifting the cold heavy arms to slide on a cloak. Khalid saw his horse had fled in the face of the storm. Casting about in the grass, he found Mohammed's sword and gingerly lifted the weapon by the hilt, sliding the blade into his own sheath. He walked somberly forward, head bent in thought or grief. His men hoisted the body on their shoulders and followed, their passage lit by the rumble and crack of lightning in the clouds and gusts of rain. The day grew cold.
Khalid saw some of the Sahaba approaching, moving cautiously forward through the rain.
"Oh, my friends," he called to them, raising his hand, face a mask of grief. "I have sad tidings for you."
The Sahaba, seeing Patik and the others carrying a body on a bier of spears, stopped dead in their tracks. Their eyes grew huge, seeing the pain on Khalid's face.
"Who has been struck down?" one of them cried out in alarm, pushing forward through his fellows.
"God has fixed the length of Mohammed's life," Khalid answered. "Today was the last day."
The man who had spoken staggered as if struck by a heavy blow. "Mohammed, our teacher, is dead?"
"No!" Khalid shouted, voice rising above the rain and growling thunder. More Sahaba approached through the rain, drawn by the commotion. "He is not dead. He has gone to god, to the power speaking from the clear air, which sets the moon in its course, which directs the tides."
Some of the Sahaba fell to their knees, weeping, clutching their spears. Khalid looked out over their faces and saw desolation entering every heart. He did not intend to say more, but a great voice suddenly issued from behind him.
"You men," Patik boomed, head raised into the driving rain. "If anyone here worships Mohammed, let those men know Mohammed is dead. But if anyone worshi
ps Allah, let him know Allah is alive and immortal forever." The Persian paused, noble gaze passing over the great host of men gathering around him. He met every eye fiercely, and there was no sound on the field of war save the drumming of rain on the ground. "Mohammed," he said, powerful baritone rolling out, "is only a messenger, and all those messengers who came before him have also died. Now that your teacher has fallen, would you turn away from his path? Whoever turns back will do no injury to Allah, but Allah will reward those who are steadfast and follow the righteous and straight way."
Then even the Persian fell silent, though his companions stared at him in surprise, for they had never heard so many words from him at one time. Khalid stared hard at the man, but Patik ignored him and slowly, with measured steps, the litter bearers turned to the north, towards their camp and the black-hulled ships. The Sahaba turned as well, their heads bent against the cold wind and rain blowing into their faces, and followed, all in silence, each man alone with his grief.
– |Jusuf tilted back his broad leather hat, letting water pooling around the brim spill off onto the flagstones of the Roman highway. He and his lancers were arrayed on either side of the road, spears and swords laid across their saddles, bows carefully stowed in their wooden cases. Ahead of them, scattered across the edge of the plain, were perhaps a thousand Khazars on foot, a thin sentry line to watch for the enemy. Jusuf did not think the enemy was coming, though. Not today, not in this weather.
Long lines of Western legionaries trudged past, heads bent, many carrying wounded comrades, the standards and banners of each cohort hanging limply against their gilded poles. Even the faces of the men were gray. Jusuf watched grimly as they marched past. This was a defeated army.
As he had feared, his tumens had taken too long-almost two hours-to wind their way out of the orchards and off the hill. By the time he had come up on the rear ranks of the Eighth Gallica, the sky shook with awesome thunder and the tumult of wind spirits in combat. In the face of that raging storm and dreadful lightning, the horses refused to advance. The Khazars bided their time in the shelter of the hill. Now the best they could do was provide a safe haven for the retreating Western troops.
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