The storm of Heaven ooe-3

by Thomas Harlan

  "We fight it, Prince. Together. It is strong, but not invincible. Not yet." The Queen drew away, her hand lingering on his muscular arm. She seemed to condense, or focus, becoming diamond hard, even the air around her shrinking away. The bone staff moved, pointing down the left-most corridor. "This way leads outside. The enemy is close; are you ready?"

  "I am." Maxian felt the last of his shields, pearlescent and gray, slide into place. For the moment, they were still invisible to the mundane eye, but the air trembled around him, subtly distorting his features. He could feel the dark woman summoning her own patterns into place as well, and he marveled at their intricacy and ancient strength. Here was a creature who far surpassed him in skill. But I am the stronger, he thought, feeling confidence flow into him. Rome is with me, and the Empire.

  The Queen loped away down the corridor, a swift black shape against the dim walls. Maxian ran after her, his bare feet slapping on the marble tiles.

  – |The Empress Irene pitched up, her curved prow breaking free of the waves, sending white spray flying away into the night. At her rear, on the steering deck, Dahvos held tight to one of the mast lines, feeling the deck yaw away from his feet. In the darkness, their way lit only by a red glow from the city, he couldn't see the waters of the Propontis, but he knew they must be heaving like a blown horse. The wave slid past and the Irene wallowed down into the trough. Black water surged up, spilling over the prow. Steam boiled from the sea, rising up in transparent clouds. The Roman captain was screaming at his men, the rowers and the steersmen both, and the galley began to swing into line. Dahvos squinted at the dark, seeing the crest of another huge roller coming at them, picked out by the light of the burning city.

  Dahvos had set out from Perinthus in the morning, his fleet pulling hard to make time up the Propontis against the prevailing cold wind out of the northeast. Several chaotic, endless days had followed his arrival in the port city. The rebellious Eighth Legion refused him admittance at first, then relented after the centurions from the Third challenged their honor. The Western recruits and their officers were shamefaced, lining the streets as the battered remnants of the Third and the Khazars entered the city. Dahvos had treated the officers of the Eighth politely, but they no longer held any kind of command. The legionaries had been folded into the Third, returning it to full strength.

  The banners and standards of the Eighth had been taken away and put into storage on one of the Western supply ships. Dahvos pretended not to notice, but the legate of the Eighth had been found dead, embracing his own sword, a day later. The Khazar Prince prayed each night, thanking the good Lord that the mutinous Romans had not decided to hold the city against him. The men of the Third had pressed him to decimate the Eighth, but there was no time for the traditional punishment. What could he do? He needed the men.

  The fleet captains, on the other hand, were eager to test themselves against the Arabs and Persians. Thus this sortie, to try the mettle of the blockade before Constantinople and see how these massive wooden horses performed on the water. Dahvos had never commanded at sea, but he trusted his captains and their crews. He hoped to get a feel for combat on the water. Salvaging this war seemed to hinge on victory over the enemy fleet.

  Now, watching the walls of the city grow closer with each sweep of the oars, he wondered if there was any reason to dare battle. The sea was angry, filled with strange currents and these huge, almost invisible swells. The western half of Constantinople seemed to be aflame, with a muted crackling roar carrying across the water. As he watched, dread growing in him, he saw columns of fire leaping above the walls lining the harbor and the shore. The Arab fleet was nowhere to be seen. Had they fled the earthquake?

  "Captain! Signal your ships-half of us will enter the harbor, slowly, the other half must stand to sea, watching for the enemy."

  The Roman captain paused in his harangue and nodded. Then he started shouting again, even more loudly than before. Sailors scurried to either side of the ship, lanterns raised in their hands. Dahvos could feel the Irene shift as the steersmen bent their tall oars into the water. The galley swung to the left, heading for the breakwater protecting the military harbor.

  The Prince of the Khazars leaned forward, hand still wrapped carefully around the rope, watching for the opening in the breakwater. There should be lights in the towers flanking the entrance, but against the fire in the sky, it was hard to see.

  "There!" he shouted, pointing at a triangular sail catching the glare, and the steersmen changed their course again. The ship, a merchantman, was wallowing out of the harbor. The Irene surged forward, the flautists on the lower decks calling for a faster stroke. The Roman captain came to the rail, staring out over the dark and troubled sea.

  "They are too low in the water," the captain said, pursing his lips. "Yes! There, do you see them? A heavy cargo."

  Dahvos counted his eyesight keen, good enough to spot a ptarmigan in a willow break, but this lurid, shifting light reflecting from the sea confused the eye. The merchantman grew closer, its round hull rolling in the heavy waves. He hissed in surprise, but one look at the skyline of the city, all engulfed in flames, and he understood. The merchantman was crowded from railing to railing with people, packed as tight as salt herrings in a barrel. They made no sound, all white faces, though they stared across the water at the passing ship. Dahvos felt the hair on the back of his arms rise up, seeing the waves slap against the side of the ship, only inches from the gunnel. A thin red stream was spilling from the wash ports.

  The Roman fleet parted, letting the merchantman pass through, and Dahvos turned back to the city, his face grim. "All hands to arms," he barked at the captain, startling the Roman from a dreadful reverie. "If you have spears, pass them out. Signal the other ships."

  Nodding, the captain shouted for his officers to join him on the rear deck. The Khazar turned back to the ghastly scene. Now he could make out the breakwater, which was thick with men and women and children, some clinging to the rocks, the sea surging up around them. A wailing cry rose above the roar and crack of the burning city. The harbor would be madness, filled with thousands of desperate people. Dahvos swallowed, realizing that he was going to make a terrible decision. The night seemed to grow even darker.

  – |The Faithful Guard marched into the square around the temple of Mithra Askendant in a line fifty men across and ten deep. The arches of the Valentinian aqueduct vaulted overhead, glowing with the ruddy light of the burning districts. The temple itself rose in the middle of the square, a great merlot and cream confection of towering pillars, massive statues and three gilded domes. Before them, the square was filled with terrified people, all running from the west. At a barked command, the Faithful extended their line, covering almost half of the square. Men and women in their sleeping clothes, some carrying ragged bundles of belongings, others empty-handed, stopped, seeing the formidable wall of iron, steel and great oval shields. The citizens wept, then fled past on either side, rushing like a stream around a jutting boulder.

  The sky above, beyond the black arches of the aqueduct, was glowing red and deep orange. The strange inky darkness that had passed over the city was now replaced by a surge of sooty clouds. Smoke billowed up from the burning city, filling the sky. It glowed and throbbed with sullen light and reflected fire. In the square, as the Faithful began a measured advance, axes and great swords at the ready, the glow cast long shadows on the ground and painted the shields red.

  Dwyrin, now kitted out with a pair of borrowed caligulae, trotted along, flanked by Nicholas on one side and Vladimir on the other. Rufio was not far away, pacing the Emperor, who moved surrounded by a double row of the Faithful. Heraclius was wearing battered old armor, with only high red boots to mark him as Emperor.

  "Hoi nekroi! Hoi nekroi erchesthe!" shouted a man as he stumbled past, his face mad with fear.

  Dwyrin stared after him as he pushed his way through the line of soldiers, fell onto the stones, and then crawled away, weeping. The plaza was emptying, lea
ving only scattered bodies of those knocked down in the mad flight. A measured drumming paced the legionaries, the sound of their boots echoing back from the empty buildings surrounding the temple square.

  "What was he saying?" Dwyrin whispered, looking over at Nicholas. The northerner shook his head; he hadn't understood the words either. Brunhilde trembled in his hand, quivering like a hunting hound. With each step, Nicholas' thin face grew grimmer. Strange winds were at play in the vast open space of the square, sending dust and grit into the faces of the Faithful.

  "I don't know," Nicholas said, holding up a hand. "Something about the dead, I think. Captain Rufio!"

  The black-eyed Greek looked over, seeing that Nicholas and the left wing had stopped. "What is it?"

  "I see something, there beyond the temple. We should wait here, I think, where our flanks are protected by the buildings and the aqueduct footing."

  Rufio was about to answer, but a stern voice cut him off. "No. We advance. I want to see the face of the enemy."

  Dwyrin saw Nicholas start to protest, but the other speaker was the Emperor, glaring between the stoic faces of the Scandians. Nicholas backed down, saluting, his arm stiff. "All maniples, arms ready, advance at a walk!"

  The Hibernian let his mind settle, trying to put the distant roar of flames, the tramp of hobnailed boots, the rattle of iron and leather, the harsh breathing of the men around him out of his mind. Tonight, under this dreadful sky, thinking of the vast crawling thing that he had seen, it was very easy. The fire leapt to his will, an eager lover, already pleading for release from the prison of flesh. He looked across the square, his mage-sight casting aside the darkness, the gloom, the odd gray fog that slowly oozed from the stones.

  Dwyrin cursed, a lurid, harsh word he had learned from his thaumaturgic instructor. At the same time, a strange wild howling filled the air and the plaza reverberated with the vibration of thousands of running feet. The Hibernian lunged forward, pushing his way through the stolid ranks of the Faithful. Vladimir and Nicholas shouted after him, then Vladimir was close behind, shoving men out of his way. There were shouts from along the line of shields, some of alarm. Other men had caught sight of the enemy.

  Dwyrin ducked under the shield of the man in front of him, then stood up, tense. The entire square was suddenly filled with a surging, running, howling mob. Tens of thousands of figures lurched towards the shield wall, shrieking and screaming. Their numbers seemed limitless, filling the whole plaza from side to side. The red glare of the sky illuminated them fitfully, showing patches of white and black, empty eyes, missing limbs.

  "The dead," Dwyrin hissed, raising his hand in a sharp, angry motion. "Stand back!"

  Vladimir reached his side, saw the seething horde of corpses rushing towards them and blanched with fear. "The Draculis! The Draculis have come against us!"

  Dwyrin snarled, his will intent, and fire blossomed in his heart and spoke from his hand. A hissing white bolt of flame leapt out and scythed across the shambling mob that was now only a hundred feet away. The creatures screeched, engulfed, thrashing wildly as white-hot fire burned into their eye sockets and burrowed into their withered chests. A hundred went down, incinerated, and a thousand poured into the gap, clawing their way forward, dead eyes fixed hungrily on the line of the Faithful.

  "Stand! Stand!" Nicholas shouted, his voice a basso roar over the tumult. The dead stormed forward, some in rusted armor, some naked, some newly dead with their flesh still pink with the residue of life. Flame licked out from Dwyrin once and then twice, setting huge swaths of the mob alight. Even burning, wreathed in blue flame, they kept coming. "The Emperor! The Emperor!"

  The dead slammed into the shield wall, mouths gaping black in the horrid red light, rotting hands clawing at the faces of the Scandians. The Faithful took the charge with a grunt, then fell back a step. Their axes slashed down, hewing heads from gangrenous necks, arms from pasty, white torsos fat with worms. The endless hollow shrieking of the dead rose and rose, rending the air, drowning out the bull roar of the centurions, hiding even the cries of the Faithful who fell, borne down by the pressing, irresistible weight of the living corpses. Even hewn to bits, lacking heads, legs, arms, the dead bit and humped forward, sliming the ground with black, rotting entrails. A vast, suffocating stench rolled before them.

  Dwyrin was surrounded by an arc of desolation, clouded by a choking, bitter smoke of incinerated bone and charred flesh. Vladimir was at his back, hacking wildly at anything that lurched too close with his great ax. The blade was slick with noisome gray-green fluid that seeped from the wounds of the dead, or burst from their abdomens as they were cut down. The Hibernian's face was a tight mask of control, but fire lashed out again, ripping long burning avenues of destruction through the pressing tide. Despite this, the Faithful were forced back a yard, then another.

  Nicholas, fighting in what was suddenly the front rank, stabbed Brunhilde into the chest of a corpse coming at him with a Legion pilum. The creature staggered, then clawed its way up the length of bright steel. Grunting, Nicholas slammed the thing's face, feeling bone crack under the impact of his armored elbow, then wrenched the long sword free. Undaunted, the creature clawed at his head, bony hands scraping across the cheek guard of his helmet. A fingertip, still sheathed in flesh, caught in his eye slit. Nicholas gasped at the stench, then slashed Brunhilde down, cleaving the arm from the body. The finger wiggled into his helmet, a sharp nail jabbing at his eyelid.

  Nicholas staggered back, out of the line of battle, shouting with fear and grasping at his own helmet. Too late. The finger was already inside the close-fitting iron, squirming against his cheek. Frenzied, Nicholas tore at the strap under his chin, feeling the nail bite at the soft surface of his eye. There was a sudden, blinding pain and then he felt the helmet give way. Screaming in fury, Nicholas grasped the wiggling bony worm in both hands and it popped free with a wet sound. Blood slicked his face, spilling down his cheek. The vile thing squirmed in his gloves, still trying to kill. He threw it away, out over the heads of the corpses shambling towards him.

  Nicholas blinked, half blinded, then wiped blood from his face. He gingerly touched his left eye and found a loose flap of skin over something squishy and moist. He felt faint, then he was on the ground, staring up at a burning sky. In his hand, Brunhilde was keening, a sharp, piercing note of dismay. "Vlad! Vlad! Help me!"

  – |Dwyrin heard Nicholas cry out, then knelt swiftly, his mind speeding through ancient, half-heard chants and patterns. Everything was coming to him with dizzying speed, power wicking up out of the ground, flying down from the sky. He had wreaked enormous destruction on the surging mob of the dead, but there were still thousands coming on. Dwyrin knew, in some calm and observant corner of his mind, that these were not just the dead of the battle, so strangely left to lie on the field in the rain and mud, but the ancient dead of the city tombs and graveyards. Their numbers might be limitless.

  The limestone flags of the plaza were ancient, long separated from their native hills and mountains. The fire in them was buried deep, hidden, barely an ember. Dwyrin touched it, feeling the quivering spark come to life in his presence. Wake! he called to the stones, moving his hand in a sharp arc that included the whole plaza. Wake!

  – |"Fall back! Re-form shield wall!"

  Rufio skipped aside, letting one of the living dead lunge past him. The captain's face was a grim mask under his helm, and he slashed down with his gladius, neatly severing the hamstrings on the back of the thing's legs. It toppled over, momentarily crippled. Despite their horrific, unnatural life, the corpses still had to use bone and muscle to move. The Faithful fell back, their axes and spears making a glittering hedge before them. Rufio was sweating heavily and his mouth was fouled with this stench that hung in the air like black fog.

  He glanced to his left, looking for Nicholas, and saw to his horror the left wing had swept away from him. Hundreds of the things pushed into a gap in the shield wall, cutting the line of battle in twain. Rufio back
ed up hurriedly, seeing the gleaming iron helms of the left falling back towards one of the streets opening onto the square from the south. He reached his own line and looked sharply for the Emperor.

  Heraclius was not far away, his armor dented and slick with gray-green ichor. The Emperor had a barbarian-style longsword in both hands. It was nicked and almost black with age. Only five or six of the Faithful were still with him, clustered at his back, watching in all directions. Their eyes met and Heraclius smiled, a half-grin. "Rufio! Where is the boy? The firecaster?"

  The captain looked about, then he saw him, a hundred feet away, surrounded by a milling circle of the dead. Strangely, they were not attacking recklessly, but slowly edging their way forward. Heaps of burned, ashy corpses were strewn around the barbarian. The boy was kneeling on the ground, his face screwed up in concentration, his palms flat on the ground.

  "I'll get him!" Rufio rushed forward, his sword licking out and cleaving the head from the nearest of the walking corpses. He smashed through the next two and was into the circle. Dwyrin looked up and Rufio skidded to a halt, ash puffing up around him in a cloud, his heart stricken with dread. The barbarian's eyes were burning, filled with leaping flame.

  "Rufio!" Heraclius cursed, then dropped his hand. He turned, gesturing with the longsword he had torn from the rotting grip of the dead. "Come on, lads, we've got to-"

  BOOM!

  A vast blast of fire leapt from the stones, ripping from one end of the plaza to the other, shooting skyward in a flare of greenish white. Tens of thousands of the dead were caught in the explosion. Hundreds of tons of limestone slabs volatilized to an incandescent white-hot cloud in one stunning blast. Corpses and bits of corpses were flung skyward, each wrapped in clinging green fire. Heraclius was thrown back by the blast, into his bodyguards. They skidded backwards in a rattle of iron and wood, a tangle of arms and legs.