The Emperor was stunned, seeing only the shoulder vambrace of one of the guards and a sliver of red sky. At least two strong men were on top of him, crushing the breath from his chest. Cursing, he shoved at them, trying to lift away the mail pressing down on him. It was getting hard to breathe. Slowly, for his arms were far weaker than they once had been, he managed to shove the bodies aside and crawl out onto the stones. The sky was lit for miles in all directions by a hissing flare that consumed the center of the plaza. Everything was as bright as noon, tinged with strange green shadows. The roar of the combusting stone was so loud that Heraclius was deafened.
He managed to get to his knees. The guardsman on top of him seemed to be dead, his armor smoking and his beard alight. Heraclius batted at the smoldering hair with his glove, but it did no good. Acres of dead seemed to surround him, all thrown down by the blast. Many of the buildings fronting the square were now burning, smoke flooding from their windows. The temple of Mithra was a wavering vision, barely visible through the heat haze and smoke. He looked for a weapon, anything, and for any of his men who were still alive.
Something crashed into his back, throwing him down. The Emperor rolled weakly, swinging around. A figure dressed in scaled mail loomed over him, burning with clinging green fire. A spear was clutched in its bony hands, the wooden haft already smoking and charred. Heraclius groped for a sword, then screamed as the spear stabbed at him. There was a sharp grating sound, sparks flying as the spearhead cracked through a joint in his armor, and then a spreading coldness in his chest. The Emperor scrabbled at the spear, trying to pull it out.
The corpse ground the point around in his ribcage, grinning white bone in the ruin of its face. Heraclius struggled, kicking at the thing's leg, then his hands slipped weakly from the smoking wood and his head lolled back, blood spilling from his mouth. With a dry hiss, the corpse wrenched the spear from the man's chest, then crumpled to one side, the green fire eating through its legs and back. Smoke boiled up out of the breastplate, obscuring a stylized emblem of two palms decorating the back of the armor.
– |Dwyrin scuttled forward, his face averted from the wall of intensely hot flame that roared around the circumference of his little cleared circle. Grunting, the young man heaved Rufio onto his shoulder. "You're a heavy bastard," Dwyrin hissed between gritted teeth. The man seemed to be alive, though part of his face was badly burned. "Let's walk now!"
Rufio managed to get his legs under him and Dwyrin turned in the direction he thought Vladimir had run. The Walach had promised to come right back, but the Hibernian could not see him. Stray corpses staggered past, some burning, some not. There was the sound of battle off in the mouth of one of the streets. Dwyrin staggered that way, dragging Rufio. Behind him, the lime fire continued to hiss and burn, greedily feasting on tens of thousands of corpses.
As he ran, the Hibernian suddenly felt a dreadful chill and looked up in surprise. Something swept past, overhead, something winged like an enormous bat, and angry, speeding east towards the heart of the city. Dwyrin nearly tripped on a crawling arm, disturbed by the presence in the sky. He had felt the power once before, long ago. The memory was a scar, glassed over, buried but not healed. He tried to run faster, hoping to find Nicholas and Vladimir somewhere ahead.
– |The Irene slid across the dark, oily harbor waters. The crew were silent, bent over their oars, the grate and rattle of the oarlocks muted. Fire burned all along the ramparts above the military harbor, lighting the sky. Huge clouds of smoke were mounting into the sky over the city, glowing orange and vermilion. There was no wind. Many galleys were splintered and broken on the stone piers, their hulls listing above the slick water. Everywhere that Dahvos looked, he saw close-packed masses of people. They filled the quays and the breakwater from side to side. Even the half-sunken ships were covered with huddled figures. The white faces, pale and silent, stared back at him as the ship sailed past.
"Lord General," the Roman captain whispered, "we're not going to land, are we?" His eyes were wide and filled with fear. The crowds had fallen silent when the first of the Western galleys had entered the harbor, though before that a tumult of prayers, screams and moaning wails had filled the air. "They'll swamp any boat putting ashore."
"I know," Dahvos said in a cold tone. "We are not going to take on any civilians."
"What?" The captain swallowed a curse, staring out at the nearest dock. Women were holding up their children, their eyes pleading. Some younger boys had leapt into the water and were swimming towards the passing ship. On the deck of the Irene, sailors were waiting with bill hooks and spears to drive them off if they tried to climb the railing. "There are thousands of people…"
"I can see." Dahvos faced the man, his face a rigid mask, half in shadow from the ruddy glare. "This city is doomed. The Persians will not sit idly by while the defenders are distracted by earthquake and fire. They are attacking the land walls at this moment. All we can do, with these ships, is take aboard every fighting man we can. Then, perhaps, there will be a chance to recapture the city in the future."
"But… but the people!" The captain gestured wildly at the docks. "They'll all die!"
"No." Dahvos looked up, gauging the progress of the fire, seeing the towers and battlements of the seawall lit with a furious red glow. "The fire cannot burn stone. They will be safe here, if cold and wet. In a day, the fire will have died down and they will return to their homes. The Persians are not monsters-they will let them resume their daily routine."
"My lord, that is monstrous! How-"
"You will do what I command," Dahvos snapped, hand sliding around the hilt of his longsword. "We will put in there." The Khazar pointed ahead, across the water, to a long quay that jutted out into the middle of the harbor. It was thick with people crowding right up to the edge, but there was also the glint of armor and helmets among the crowd. At the end of the dock, the main road from the city descended on a causeway from the ramparts above to the harbor.
At the captain's command, the Irene swung towards the pier, her oars moving in swift unison. The ship crabbed around, then slipped forward in smooth, effortless motion. Dahvos saw, as their destination became clear, a surge in the people packed onto the dock. A wail rose up, pitiful and hopeless, from the other piers and people began to beg and scream. His jaw clenched and his lips thinned to a hard line. The soldiers on the main pier were fighting now, hacking at the mob pressing against them. People were toppling from the sides of the dock, shrieking, and hitting the water with a boil of white water. The Irene slid closer, her foredeck packed with marines, all in cork armor. A young man, still clad only in a nightshirt, swam out, clutching at the oars dipping from the water.
One of the marines, seeing him reach the prow and his hands grasp futilely at the smooth oak, leaned down. A hush fell over the crowd on the dock. The marine stabbed down with a long leaf-bladed spear, catching the boy in the chest. There was a thin scream, then a bubbling sound as the boy was pushed under the water. The ship swept on and the body was pulled under the dark water by the roil of its passage. The people moaned with fear, suddenly knowing that they were doomed.
Dahvos stared ahead, watching the pushing struggle on the dock become a battle. More soldiers were pushing through the crowd, throwing people into the water, striving to reach the end of the dock. The Irene was very close now, only a hundred feet away.
The sky lit suddenly, washed by a virulent white light. Dahvos hissed in surprise, flinching away from the city. The clouds, still boiling and thick, lit like a stained-glass goblet held up to a flame, showing ribbons of color and hidden plumes within glowing white columns of smoke. A sullen, drawn-out boom followed. Something had happened in the center of the city, throwing up a great radiance lighting the sky in all directions.
The Khazar khagan blinked, a trickle of fear in the back of his throat. Great powers were struggling in the city, as they had on the plain. He suddenly wished that he had remained at home, on the open grasslands of Sarai, with his family.
O God of Avrahan, watch over us tonight, let us come through this test…
– |The Dark Queen glided to a halt in a pool of shadow. Ahead of her, the street ended in the sweeping circle of the Forum of Constantine. A massive column rose from the center of the plaza, rising up a hundred feet, crowned in gold by a striking marble statue of the first Emperor of the East. The pale face stared west, down the arrow-straight avenue of the Mese. The Forum was surrounded by temples and imposing public buildings. Four centuries of construction had ornamented the center of Constantinople with graceful buildings and blocky monstrosities. Maxian stopped as well. Her lithe speed had taken him by surprise, but then he had remembered what Alais had taught him, letting the night carry him forward.
He made to speak, but then felt the shudder of power in the hidden world. Something white hot, burning furiously, was suddenly unleashed a mile or more away. The sky flashed bright and then the afterimage reverberated in his mind and vision. The tall column threw an immense shadow across the plaza, silhouetting thousands of people milling about in fear. A rumbling crack and thunder followed, then a greenish-white flare leapt up into the sky. Maxian could not see the source, for there were many buildings in the way, but he could feel the intense heat on his face.
His shields rippled as outflung power washed over them, but it was not a directed attack. This was the flux from some massive burst of strength. He wondered what had been the focus, but knew that anything at the center of that maelstrom must be destroyed.
"What is-" Maxian stilled, the Queen having raised a thin hand. She turned, looking over her shoulder, pale eyes glittering against the white radiance flooding the sky. He half sensed her intricate layers of protection growing even stronger.
"Do you feel him?"
Maxian nodded, his skin going cold. Something rushed towards them in the night air, a heavy darkness distorting the hidden world with its very presence. The Oath was very weak here, in the East, but some fragments remained, clinging to the ancient monuments and the mile marker standing at the base of Constantine's pillar. The matrices shuddered at the touch of whirling chaos passing over them. "It is not alone."
"No." The Queen's voice was faint. "It has learned, I fear. Before, we fought many against one. Now it has gathered servants-Stand ready!"
The black point in the air suddenly swelled into a shape, rushing through the sooty air. A figure like a man, but trailing a long obsidian cloak. Something like wings flared back from the body, but they folded away as it lit on the golden ring at the base of Constantine's statue. The servant came, too, sweeping out of the night sky, the firelight of the dying city gleaming on a head of iron. Maxian stiffened, recognizing the likeness of one of the dead gods of Egypt. Fear seemed to emanate as a physical force from the black shape clinging to the summit of the column.
The crowds of people in the plaza fled, wailing, running as fast as they could in all directions. Men trampled women, threw down children and babies. Blood spattered on the cobblestones. Maxian looked away from the grisly sight, but his resolve hardened. He felt weak without the comfortable embrace of the Oath, but he was still strong. Maxian stepped out into the plaza, the pulsing white light in the sky falling upon him. The air was thick with heat, ash and the bitter iron stink of blood and urine. As he did so, the Prince set his will to draw on the strength in the stones beneath his feet, in the air, even in the buildings surrounding him.
His shields and wards flashed a deep brilliant azure, swelling with strength. The thing on the column turned towards him. Maxian felt the gaze like a blow, and a faint wash of darkness lapped around his wards. The margin of his perception heard gibbering cries, smelled a charnel stink, felt the crack of bone and the bubbling gasp of a final breath. The Dark Queen was gone, disappeared into shadow.
Begone! he called across the empty air. Laughter answered him, foul and repellent. You will not take this city. It is under my protection.
There was no answer. Instead, the sky darkened with dizzying speed. An ebon tide spilled across the smoky air, coming from the west, blotting out the clouds, swallowing the greenish-white flare. Maxian felt power fade from the world around him, seeing even the hurried, busy motion of the tiny motes that made up the air slow and fade. A deep chill fell across him and his breath suddenly puffed white.
The iron-headed dog leapt down from the column, landing softly, though his booted feet cracked through newly formed ice on the flagstones. It advanced, a black staff crowned by a snake's head in hand. Maxian drew breath, feeling the chill sear his lungs, and stepped sideways. A whirling vortex of intent flashed to his right hand. The iron dog loped forward, staff cutting down. Maxian braced himself, then staggered back. Darkness licked against his ward, soundless, but the blow was heavy, splintering the outermost pattern into a dizzying spray of smoking fragments.
Maxian slashed his hand in a sharp arc. This time there was sound. A crackling thunderclap ripped across the plaza, trailing a burning, jagged bolt. The lightning washed over the iron dog, outlining its own wards and patterns, snapping and popping fiercely. The creature was thrown back, skidding across the ice. Maxian leapt ahead, rage boiling up, fueling his power. A forefinger stabbed out, lighting the darkness with a crack! of power.
Ultraviolet waves hissed, radiating out in a swift shock. The iron dog's pattern buckled, rippling like a sea in full storm, glyphs and symbols flashing in sudden brilliance, then fading to nothing. Smoke boiled up from the surface of the plaza, the frost exhaling in a white cloud. The thing was forced down to a crouch, iron head bent. Maxian could feel the presence of the dark figure in the dog, making an odd double echo in the thing's pattern. He struck again, lips pulling back in a grimace, and the plaza lit with an azure flash.
The clouds rippled away from the blast, swirling into cone-shaped vortices, and lightning cracked and raged around the figure on the ground. The iron mask began to glow a cherry red and there was an involuntary scream. The figure clawed at the mask, fingers smoking as they touched the hot metal. Maxian felt a fierce exultation, feeling his enemy's pattern suddenly waver and fade. His fist clenched, twisting in the air, pushing away from his body.
The air convulsed between them, twisting around a sizzling blue-white sphere that leapt from Maxian's hand. The flagstones of the plaza rumbled, cracking in line with the sphere, and then the iron dog was engulfed in a raging explosion of lightning, smoke and hissing fire. Struggling at the heart of the maelstrom, the iron dog groped for its fallen staff. Then the last pattern buckled, de-formed by enormous pressure, and there was a rumbling, echoing crack! as power flooded in, pinning the creature to the ground.
Maxian leapt back, soaring into the air, feeling the space around him twist and bend. The dark figure on the column at last entered the fight. Black fire shattered the cobblestones, flinging debris in all directions. At the same time, Maxian felt the ebon cloud converge on him. The temperature continued to drop and he was forced to divert some of his intent to keeping the air around him warm enough to breathe. Darkness lapped around him, sidling out of the sky in patchy sheets. The shadows sizzled against his ward, fragmenting, but draining the outer layers like a tap in a dam. Each whisper-soft blow leached more and more strength from the shield.
Cold laughter echoed from the pinnacle of the column. Maxian was assailed by visions and hideous sounds. Squirming mouths, studded with pinlike teeth, fastened to his flesh, sending jolts of agony through his limbs. Something monstrous swelled in the air, Batrachian wings blocking out the sky, the outline of the pulsating form impossible to define. A forest of black tentacles squirmed over his body, digging at his eyes, sliding gelatinously into his mouth and nose.
Maxian struggled to keep his pattern solid, groped for the power to strike back. He felt himself falling, plummeting towards the cold, icy stone of the plaza, but ignored the sensation, thinking it was a hallucination.
The Prince hit the ground hard, cracking his leg, then feeling his ankle splinter with a pop. True pain coursed through him and he scre
amed. The shadows in the air had eaten away the pattern that had held him aloft. Tears smoked from his face, freezing in the incredible cold. He lost concentration, fingers digging into the ice, a long scream of pain rending his throat.
Get up, boy, get up now! A furious voice echoed in his mind and he felt his arms push him up from the ground. We're all dead if you don't put that pain aside!
Frightened, Maxian felt himself lurched up, most of his weight on one foot. His other ankle was like a red-hot ember shoved under the flesh, burning at his nerves.
Heal yourself, you bastard! You're a fucking priest of Asklepius!
Shadows crowded around, seeping through the remains of his shield. Maxian tried to breathe, but the air had frozen again. He gasped, choking. One of the shadows spilled through a crack in the pattern, touching his wounded foot. The skin froze, cracking away from the bone in thin, shell-like sheets. Maxian stared down in horror, watching black corruption creep up his leg.
Do it! The voice had a strange accent, and Maxian felt his arms twitch, wrenched from his control. Columella! Show me how to do this! He's lost his fucking mind. A babble of other voices answered, filling Maxian's head with chaos. He trembled, unable to move, his feet frozen to the ground.
Lord Prince, an urgent voice, elderly, Roman, with unmistakable traces of a patrician Latin accent, penetrated. You must open yourself to the healing power. Now!
Maxian responded to the snap of command in the elderly voice, his mind finding the pattern that restored flesh and bone and the vital humors. Health suddenly blossomed in his flesh and the pain stopped, cut off like a joint split by the butcher's cleaver. His mind was clear, even the strange voices fading away. The air warmed within his compressed, almost destroyed shield. Ice melted away from his feet. The crawling skin of shadow cracked, then hissed to vapor. Bone knit in his shattered ankle, flesh regrew at a phenomenal rate, strength returned to arm and leg.
A sharp shout of command focused his mind, and pure white light flooded from his upraised hand. The shadows fled, shrieking, dissolving as the light touched them. Maxian stood, hale, upright, on the blocky flagstones of the plaza, his shields restored, burning blue and white in the darkness.
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