The Dark Lord

like a stave, a wild, hoarse shout roaring from his lips. The fellaheen, pinned against the tomb wall, were wailing in fear, and another hurled spear cut one down.

The Persian lord attacked, mace smashing overhand as he led with his right foot. Thyatis bobbed aside, evading the blow, then slashed her blade at the man's face. His own sword snapped up and sparks shivered in the air. A furious passage followed, blade on blade, the Persian stamping on the attack, Thyatis nimbly evading his powerful strokes. She blocked a sharp cut with the dagger, letting the blades bind, going hilt to hilt with the man. He grunted, feeling the strength in her arm, then shoved.

Thyatis spun aside, letting his motion carry him off-balance, then let her own momentum slam her left elbow into the side of his head. The iron vambrace on her arm cracked against his ear, drawing a shout of pain and spattering blood. She cut viciously with the sword, though the Persian rolled away. The Roman blade scored a long gash across his thigh, just above the knee. He went down.

Another Persian shouted wildly, charging at Thyatis. She whirled, blocking his spear down and away with her sword and dagger en crosse, then snap-kicked him in the face. The Persian staggered, stunned, and Thyatis' wrist flicked over, driving the point of her spatha into his jugular. Choking, the man fell backwards, fingers groping wildly at his throat.

In the same moment, Mithridates bellowed, catching two of the Persian soldiers across the chest with his pry bar, lifting them bodily from the floor. Massive muscles straining, the Numidian slammed them into the nearest pillar with a ringing clang! Breathless, the Persians were flung to the floor, armor creased by the blow. Grinning wildly, Mithridates sprang forward through the gap. Another Persian soldier threw himself at the Numidian, cutting sideways with both hands on his longsword. Mithridates parried with one end of his iron staff, smashing the blade from the man's hand, then lashed the bar across the Persian's face. Metal met metal with a ringing bang! and the side of the Persian's helmet caved in, spraying blood across a nearby statue. The stricken man crumpled like an empty sack.

Thyatis wrenched her attention away, wildly parrying an overhand blow from the big Persian's sword. In her brief moment of inattention, he had regained his feet. Now he attacked furiously and Thyatis met him blade for blade in a whirl of strike and parry and counterstroke. They lunged back and forth across the stone floor, barely cognizant of the melee swirling around them.

Her arms burning with fatigue, Thyatis slowed a fraction as she tried to evade another blow. The haft of the mace slammed down on her right arm, knocking the dagger loose. The blade spun away across the floor. Bloodfire surged, driving her limbs to new speed. She slammed the Persian's blade away, then rotated smartly, hewing down with the spatha in both hands. The man tried to wrench the mace away, but the keen edge of the Roman sword struck the wooden haft and squealed through dense oak.

Casting the stub away with a grimace, the Persian circled, panting, both hands on the hilts of his blade.

Thyatis did not pause, rushing the man, her blade singing in a deadly figure eight. The Persian parried, then blocked, grunting as the Roman woman put her shoulder into the blow. They locked hilts, sandals sliding on the bloody floor. Her vision narrowed to a shimmering gray-ringed tunnel, Thyatis realized the man hadn't used the point of his blade at all, relying instead on a blizzard of cuts and slashes. Blade shirring on his, she flicked the tip of her spatha up. Eyes wide, the man flung his head back, narrowly avoiding losing his lower jaw to the bright metal.

Taking the opening, Thyatis slammed his breastplate with a lightning-quick kick, sending him to the floor in a clatter of metal. Regaining her balance, she danced in, stabbing viciously as he scrambled away, sword lost, across the stone floor.

An upflung hand took one of her blows, the spatha biting into splinted mail on the Persian's forearm. Thyatis wrenched the blade back, then sprang away as the man kicked at her legs.

Relieved of immediate engagement, the scene around Thyatis sprang back into focus. Frenzied words, spoken in some unknown tongue, reverberated in the air, sending a wild chill washing over Thyatis' arms. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mithridates charge a portly, middle-aged man in desert robes, the iron bar whirling above his head like a scythe. The Persian made a stabbing motion in the air, his voice rolling like thunder. Vladimir loped forward, a gore-streaked axe in his hands. Nicholas was looking up from a dying Persian, surprised, the brilliant ruby glow of his longsword shining in his eyes. Dead and wounded men littered the floor.

'Sorcerer!' Thyatis shouted, hurling herself behind the nearest pillar. A violent alizarin flare followed hard on her shout, coupled with an enormous, ringing crack! Tremendous heat billowed past and Thyatis ground her face into the column, eyes squeezed shut. Even through her lids, she caught a glimpse of the room blazing with witch light and felt her armor swell with sudden heat.

The echo of the blast rang and rang, reverberating from the walls. Plaster caught fire, ignited by the flames. Thyatis scuttled out, low to the floor, and saw the Persian wizard stagger to his feet, haloed by a wheel of fire. Mithridates' corpse toppled to the ground, torn in half by the blast. Droplets of molten iron hissed and sizzled on the stones. Face contorted in hate, Thyatis snatched up a discarded hammer and overhanded it at the Persian.

The metal head struck the air with a tinny, ringing sound and then the wooden handle burst into flame. Stunned, the Persian wizard flinched back and the corona of near-invisible fire around him flickered out of existence. Before Thyatis could react, a huge groaning sound filled the room. Feeling the floor tremble under her feet, the Roman woman jumped back, groping for the shelter of her column.

To her right, one of the pillars—shattered by the sorcerous blast—cracked, splitting lengthwise. Stone and debris cascaded down. The entire room shivered, stone grinding on stone. As Thyatis looked up, a queasy feeling roiling in her stomach, the ceiling spiderwebbed with cracks, jetting dust, rippling like a lake disturbed by a fallen stone.

—|—

'Go, go, go!' Penelope, seamed face twisted into a rictus of commingled fear and blazing anger, wrenched Shirin along the corridor, flinging the younger woman forward. Ears still ringing from the mysterious blast, the Khazar woman picked up her robe and sprinted up the tunnel. The entire tomb seemed to sway, the ground still trembling with motion.

Ducking under the lintel of a corridor junction, Shirin turned, staring back down the tunnel. The Egyptian woman came up limping, coughing in a cloud of billowing white dust. 'Go.' She shoved Shirin out of the way, falling heavily into the rough-hewn room. 'Turn right and climb the ramp!'

Penelope fell to her knees, tangled in the loose cloth of her robes, a harsh gasp wrenched from thin lips as her left foot touched the ground. The ceiling groaned in counterpoint, countless tons of rock shifting minutely. Gritting her teeth against the choking cloud, Shirin hooked an arm under the older woman's shoulder and dragged her up. 'We're both getting out,' she hissed, hoisting Penelope onto her shoulders. Despite her imposing personality, the Egyptian felt spindly and bird-like, light on Shirin's back.

Without waiting for another tremor, the Khazar woman sprinted up the right-hand tunnel.

At the top of the ramp, the corridor split again and the other Daughters were waiting, eyes wide in fear. Shirin staggered to a halt, Penelope's forearm tight around her neck.

'Run,' the old Egyptian woman barked at her followers. 'Make sure no one's watching the Hunter's door!' Shirin made to follow, but Penelope slapped her breast hard. 'There... the statue.'

Shirin ran to an alcove holding a cat-headed statue girded with spears and banded armor. Favoring her ankle, Penelope swung down and leaned against the wall. Grimacing, the old Egyptian slammed the pommel of her knife against the god's chest. Pottery cracked, then broke under a second blow. Shirin, pushing aside curiosity, lent her own weight to the effort, shattering chipped edges, revealing a cavity inside the statue.

'Grasp hold of the loop,' Penelope gasped, one hand—now streaked with blood from lacerated knuckles— groping inside the opening. Shirin thrust her own hand in, found a waxed, slippery length of rope and pulled. There was a distant ratcheting sound and she felt a heavy resistance on the cord. Penelope grabbed hold of the ancient black rope as it emerged from the broken statue. Pulling together, both women strained against the line, bracing their feet against the statue pediment.

The clanking sound rose to a sharp pitch, then suddenly tension released on the line. Shirin fell heavily, cracking her hip on the floor. A dull, thundering boom sounded in the distance and grit puffed from the broken statue. Penelope rose wearily, favoring her leg. She grinned ferociously in the light of a sputtering, broken lamp.

'Sleep well, old Queen,' she barked, laughing like a hyena. 'Rest in the earth, forever undisturbed by the