The Dark Lord

from the ground. A moment later, they too jogged off into the haze rising from the harbor. Watching the Romans disappear into the fog, the fellaheen looked warily at one another, then turned and scuttled towards the city as fast as they could.

—|—

Khalid burst from the avenue at a run, shield snug against his left arm, a dim, mist-veiled sun gleaming in the curving blade of his sword. A guttural roar boomed from his men as they saw the enemy. The road wound out between low buildings and onto a broad causeway flanked by a retaining wall on either side and stout pillars carved with dolphins and cranes. The entrance to the Heptastadion was blocked by overturned carts and building materials. Khalid caught sight of Romans crouched behind the barrier, some in armor, some not. Their faces were only blurs as he ran forward, shouting, 'at them!'

The Sahaba rushed forward, more and more men spilling out of the alleyways and down the street. Khalid leapt forward at an easy run, seeing the barricade loom before him. Then, only ten paces or so away, the Romans stood up and Khalid shouted a warning.

'Javelins!' He swung up his shield, turning his body away from the flying spears and stones.

Something heavy smashed into the laminated hide and cedar of his shield. Khalid staggered, startled by the strength in the cast, then rushed ahead again. He leapt over the body of an Arab youth choking on his own blood, a short-hafted spear jutting from his chest. The triangular tip had punched clear through the boy's scaled breastplate, leaving thin streams of crimson crawling across polished metal.

Khalid felt his shield drag and cursed—a javelin was stuck in the hides, head twisted, wooden shaft banging against his knees—pausing to knock the missile away with his sword. Arabs and Nabateans pushed past, surging against the barricade. Shouts and screams tore the air and the clanging racket of iron on iron beat at Khalid's ears. The javelin clattered to the ground and the young general tried to push forward through the press of sweating, close-packed men.

Khalid's effort failed. Too many armored backs crowded in front of him. The Romans met the charge with a brisk play of blades and spears on the barrier, throwing the Sahaba back, leaving scattered bodies trapped in the jumble of carts and logs and blocks of stone. Khalid cursed again, this time at himself and wormed his way back towards the rear ranks.

'Shields!' he screamed, trying to be heard above the din. The Romans were shouting insults now and flinging amphorae into the crowd of Arabs. The crash of breaking pottery and the sting of vinegar filled the air. Khalid's throat was already hoarse and the day's battle was only minutes old. 'Form shield wall!'

He broke free of the crowd and immediately began dragging men back by their belts and helmet straps. 'Everyone back! Form a line!'

More Sahaba pressed toward the barrier, running up out of the confusing maze of tombs and temples covering the island. On their barricade, the Romans were laughing. Some men with bows now shot from between the wagons, knocking down Arabs trapped in the press of the crowd.

'Everyone back a pace!' Khalid shouted again and now his banner leaders began to repeat his command, beating on their soldiers' helmets and shoulders with the flat of their swords. Slowly, the mass of Arabs, Nabateans and Greeks fell back, letting their shields come into play. More dead littered the ground before the barricade. The dusty ground clotted with blood and wine.

—|—

The Jackal stepped forth from the remains of a farmhouse a hundred yards from the Roman rampart. Before him loomed the doubled towers of the Gate of the Sun, a pair of granite and sandstone monsters rising four and five stories above the plain. On either side, the sloping berm of the fortification ran off into cloudy, humid air. The ancient stone was scored with jagged black streaks and glassy, star-shaped craters. Thickets of stakes and tangled brush—most burned and withered from terrible fires—covered the slope on either side of the gate.

Not a single man could be seen on the wall, for the Romans had finally learned prudence.

The Jackal's mask had been repaired and repainted, chalky eyes bright, the lolling tongue fresh as blood. Even the shattered ear had been reforged and replaced. His body, twisted with scars and puckered wounds, was filled with new life—strong, muscular, shining with sweat in the dreadful heat. A clean white kilt fell from a belt of dark leather. His bare feet dug into the rich, loamy black soil of the delta.

The Jackal raised his hand and the sullen green sky rippled with slow waves. Distantly, a long, drawn-out rumble of thunder answered his motion. The presence within the mask felt the air pressure change and shift, saw gradients of power surge in the land—dark blue leaching up from hidden waters—bricks crumbled in the ruined building and grass withered as the Jackal summoned power to his rising hand.

Fists clenched, then pointed towards the looming wall.

A week and a day had passed since the failure of the first Persian assault. The Jackal's master had regained his power, gathered his wits, seen the wisdom of the Boar's plan and labored a long time beneath dark and moonless skies among the tombs and fields surrounding the city. Undisturbed by the Roman thaumaturges hiding in the city, the Lord of the Ten Serpents had hidden his foul work with night and distance.

A dry rustling chattered in the air and the Jackal leapt lightly up onto the top of a broken, splintered brick wall. Immediately, figures shambled forward below him, first one—groping sightlessly forward, eyes black pits, fingers skeletal twigs—then another, and another.

Within moments, a vast crowd of dry brown shapes crawled and shuffled out of the fields, emerging from the mist, their outlines indistinct in the steadily fading light. A dull green haze advanced in the upper air, roiling across the sky, tendrils rushing forward, then curling around some unseen obstacle before oozing onward again. A clacking murmur began to rise from the host shuffling towards the wall.

The Jackal turned, looking south. A mile away, at the Nile Gate, a figure in radiant white turned as well and she raised pale cream arms, wrapped tight with gold and silver. The Raven answered his unspoken thought. Their power moved in the hidden world, motivating desiccated limbs to jerking, fumbling motion. The two figures turned to the city, looking out over the advancing host of the uneasy dead.

On the wall, motion stirred, then feeble sunlight glanced from a helmet. The day grew dark as the oily clouds advanced. Shadows deepened in the ruins and under the eaves of the buildings.

On the plain below, the dead began to shamble forward, almost at a run, and their dry limbs rubbed and scraped, a forest of winter-bare twigs and branches shaken by an invisible, irresistible wind. The first of the dead began to climb the slope. One drove itself, unthinking, unheeding, upon a sharpened stake. The wood tore through ancient, withered skin, then jabbed from the corpses' back. Black dust puffed from the wound. Undaunted, the shape clawed forward, leathery body tearing in half with a dry, ripping sound. Relentless, the head and torso crawled up the slope. Severed legs beat violently in the dirt.

A long, wailing cry sounded, ringing back from the towers and ramparts. On a fighting platform atop the wall, a torsion arm snapped against a hide-wrapped wooden bar. With a loud twang, a wicker ball caked with pitch arced into the air, crackling and burning, trailing black smoke. The missile plunged into the vast, jostling crowd advancing across the field. Pale green-and-orange fire blossomed, consuming a dozen, two dozen of the dead. Without a sound, they marched on, dry flesh making ready tinder, puffy white smoke rising to join the dark oily effluvia of naphtha. More corpses staggered, heedless, into the bonfire.

A brownish-gray tide rose against the wall, scrambling and crawling up the slope. Where one corpse fell, tangled in thorns or pierced by a stake, twenty crawled on, grinding the fallen into dust beneath skeletal feet. A clack-clack-clack of splintering bone rose, swelling into the heavy air.

Distantly, the Jackal heard men shouting in fear. More scorpions thwanged and more missiles lofted into the afternoon sky. Bombs fell, billowing into flame with a snap and rush of igniting air. Figures on the wall began hurling stones that crashed and bounced among the silent, advancing mob. At the Gate of the Sun, burning oil fell in sheets of flame onto corpses and withered skeletons crowding at the portals themselves. Huge clouds of smoke boiled up and the dry rattling jerked into a cacophony of burning skin and cracking bone.

Still, the dead continued to swarm across the fields.

Atop his wall, the Jackal trembled, power rushing through him like water in a mining sluice, eroding his tattered soul. A mile away to the south, the Queen shuddered as well, her still-living body suffering the piercing, red-hot pain of the sorcerer's working. Sweat blinded her, yet she did not fall. Instead, she stood alone atop a half-burned siege tower, a golden diadem shining in her dark hair, plainly visible from the walls.

This she did by choice, for she would not turn her face from the destruction of such a fair city.