The Age of Ra

plain below. Two of the C39s attacked its flanks. Red ba sparked from the bomber's mid- fuselage blaster turrets. One of the helicopters bulged with scarlet brilliance and disintegrated. The shielding on the other held out, and it retaliated with a ba bolt of its own that blew the offending turret, and the gunner within, to smithereens.

A third C39 — and somehow David knew it was Nonomura's — tackled the Typhon head-on, flying in reverse and disgorging vast amounts of ba and rocketry at the plane. Anubians did not have access to fusion weaponry, being under the aegis of only one god, not two. But what they lacked in quality of destructive capability, they made up for in quantity. The sheer amount of firepower emanating from the gunship was breathtaking, an almost solid barrage of conventional ordnance and divine essence leaping from it to the front of the Typhon. Bit by bit the bomber's nosecone was flayed, metal skin flaking off in shards till the ribs of the airframe showed through. Its windshield shattered, turning from clear glass to white ice. The Typhon lumbered on, but its bombs were no longer falling. It itself was falling, gradually and inexorably losing height and speed. The C39 continued to hammer at it all the way down, till the Typhon, now rotating around its longitudinal axis, scraped the ground with one wingtip and instantly slammed flat onto its nose, teetered, then keeled over onto its back with a tremendous, dust-billowing thump. Nonomura's C39 sprang triumphantly away into the sky.

The second Typhon, similarly harried by Anubians, tried to get out of its predicament by gaining altitude. This, though, enticed a C39 to nip in under it and blast upwards at its belly. A shot penetrated into the bomb bay. What happened next was as inevitable as it was spectacular. A huge tonnage of Setic-Nephthysian fusion warheads ignited at once. The ensuing ball of light spanned a quarter of a mile in diameter, scarlet shot through with shimmering bands and vortices of purple. The ball erupted then contracted in the space of a couple of seconds, engulfing not only the Typhon but the C39 that had triggered the blast and also another of the helicopters that had been attacking the bomber. What remained, after the dazzling sphere was gone and the echoes of its deafening detonation had faded, was a surprisingly small amount of debris and wreckage, which rained down to earth, trailing ribbons of smoke.

The Locusts returned in a third and final wave but were warier this time around, chastened by the punishment they had taken previously. They came in at greater altitude, which further hampered their accuracy. They dropped whatever was left beneath their wings to drop, then hightailed for home, with the four surviving C39s giving chase. Nonomura's men secured three more kills before the much faster jets poured on speed and disappeared over the horizon.

David, still blinking to clear the gibbous blue afterimage of the exploding Typhon from his vision, surveyed the scene. As the smoke that shrouded the plain thinned, he saw carnage. He saw bodies spilled around patches of scorched ground. He saw a Scarab tank cracked open, eviscerated, like a beetle crushed underfoot. But, to his eyes, the damage seemed considerably less significant than it could have been. The troops were still in their lines. There were still four C39s left, now descending, their vanes making whorls in the smoke. The Nephthysians had tried their damnedest, but the Lightbringer's army had held out.

If only he hadn't known that the air raid was only the beginning. A softening-up exercise.

A ground assault was on its way, soon. Very soon.

26. Armed

The Lightbringer got swiftly out there, crossing the plain, assessing the state of play, seeing what had been lost and what was still intact, redeploying his resources, shoring up gaps in the lines, and, wherever he went, strengthening his troops' resolve with a few well chosen words, a congratulation here, an encouragement there.

''Remember,'' he said, at every opportunity, ''it's not the size of the army in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the army. Which makes us the strongest army there's ever been.''

He also oversaw the burial of the dead and the triage of the wounded. Anyone too badly hurt to engage in combat again was pulled back to the field hospital that had been set up on the northern side of Mount Megiddo. The rest were treated on the spot and offered a choice of recuperation behind lines or staying put. Invariably they plumped for the latter, much to their leader's delight.

When the Lightbringer returned from his tour of inspection, David was all set to challenge him about the Zafirah incident. He headed for the command post, intending to intercept him and demand a private audience. It seemed churlish under the circumstances — petty, even — but he had to know if what he'd seen earlier that morning was what he thought he'd seen. The Lightbringer's army had just skirmished with the enemy, and a bigger, fiercer battle was looming, but something important was at stake here: his faith in his brother, what remained of it.

The Lightbringer appeared with an entourage of warlords. He greeted David with a weary wave.

''Planning meeting,'' he said. ''Coming?''

David hesitated. A planning meeting could go on for hours, and all that time he would be sitting there, listening to conversations conducted in rapid-fire Arabic, with the Lightbringer clueing him in on what was being said, but only now and then, during infrequent lulls in the proceedings. He couldn't see himself waiting that long to have his man-to-man with Steven. Instead, he could see himself quietly fuming in a corner of the room, getting more and more agitated until in the end he stood up and said or did something rash and regrettable.

He swallowed hard. Much though it pained him, he would have to put the matter on hold. For now.

''No,'' he said.

''No?''

''You don't need me. I'd be better off finding myself some weapons and getting down there.'' He nodded towards the plain. ''That's where I'm needed, I think.''

A heartbeat pause. Then: ''Fair enough. If you say so.''

''I do,'' David said, and left.

He made a beeline for the armoury, which occupied the husk of a building that had probably been Megiddo's main counting-house. The city, in its heyday, had stood at the nexus of several major trade routes and had raked in revenue accordingly, in the form of levies and handling fees. Now, in a hall where actuaries had once hunched over ledgers and money had been accumulated, an arsenal was stockpiled. Under the eye of a man called Farooq, who was, for want of a better job title, quartermaster, David browsed. Farooq recommended an Argentine pistol, a Horusite mace. He proffered David several types of sub-machine gun. ''Very good, this one. Three-round-burst setting. Kill, kill, kill.'' With a gurning mime of firing the gun. ''And save on ammo.'' But what David was after, and found, were an Osirisiac ba lance and a crook-and-flail set.

He hefted the ba lance, then the crook and flail. This was what he understood. This was what he knew. The weapons felt right in his hands. They were things he had been trained to use and knew he could rely on. A god rod and a pair of modified farming implements — tools of the trade.

He checked the charge in the lance. Three-quarters full. Not bad going. He strapped it on his back. He hooked the crook and flail onto his belt.

Then, tossing a ''Shokran'' to Farooq, he exited the armoury and set off down the mountain.

Steven hadn't tried to stop him.

That was the thought that obsessed David as he headed south across the plain, past smouldering fields and around bomb craters, to the forwardmost line.

He'd said he was going down here, into the thick of things, and Steven had replied, ''Fair enough. If you say so.'' As if meaning: You go and face the enemy head-on, when he comes. Put your life in jeopardy. I don't care.

Perhaps he'd been preoccupied, too many other things to think about. Perhaps he'd seen the determination in his brother's eye and known there was nothing he could to dissuade him.

Or perhaps letting David go to the battlefront, where he might well get killed, was convenient for Steven. His rival for Zafirah, eliminated.

No, Steven wasn't like that.