The Dark Lord

stole the device. This shape... A sensation of chill humor echoed... was almost destroyed.

'Enough!' Dahak released the connection violently, mocking laughter ringing in his thoughts. The prince stared around the old temple with a sick, conflicted expression. 'Lost in the desert... witches interfering again! Why didn't I crush them all long ago...' He realized he was muttering and closed his mouth with a snap. Fixing his attention on the nearest wall, Dahak breathed slowly until his racing heart slowed to a walk. The wall was painted with scenes of men giving sacrifice to the sun, whose golden disc encompassed them in beneficent rays, carrying Amon's blessing. All the races of the earth were represented, from the pale hair of the northmen to the shining blue-black of the southern tribes.

His reptilian face twisting in despair, Dahak pressed his fingers against the fresco, slowly tracing yellow- painted lines, a round solar disk flanked by spreading hawk wings, rich fields of corn and wheat. A strange sound echoed in the chamber, throbbing among the roof arches. Dahak started, staring around, one hand raised in the beginnings of a pattern sign.

There was no one in the funerary temple. He was alone.

What was that? The prince's eyes slid closed, one transparent lid sliding over another. Even in the hidden world, there was nothing around him, no invisible adversary, no spy, no secret watcher. Was that someone crying?

The prince looked back to the painting and his jaw tightened. The sun in the middle of the composition mocked him, so perfectly round, fulfilling and sustaining the world of men. Dahak turned his face toward the ceiling, letting his sight peel away the stone arches, the tiled roof, then a sea of air, the thin white clouds so far above the curve of the earth, then an abyss of distant fire and the cold, dead moon.

I do not need to see this, Dahak thought, wrenching his attention away from the void. The Hyades have not risen and Al-Debaran still hides behind the world. There is still time. His hand, still resting upon the wall, convulsed, iron-hard nails digging through plaster into the stone below. But not much, no... not much. Not even as men measure the hours.

—|—

'Row!' A Praetorian, long blond hair wild around his head, screamed at a dozen soldiers. The men shied away from the barbarian, but their hands already wrapped around the long, polished pine handle of a huge oar. Sextus caught a glimpse of the men straining, faces red with effort, as he staggered up the gangway. Frontius flopped on his back like a marlin, drooling vomit on his shoulder. The wounded engineer was not doing well.

Two legionaries at the top of the gangway seized both of them with rough hands and threw them bodily onto the boarding deck of the grain hauler. Moments later, axes thudded into hawsers and the entire wooden ramp plunged into dirty brown water. Sextus rolled over, groaning, his hip twinging with sharp, stabbing pain. 'What...'

Four enormous oars bit into the water and the grain hauler—despite her mass—jerked away from the dockside. Her holds were empty, making her surprisingly light on the water. The engineer bounded up, panic driving away the throbbing in his hip. 'What are you doing?' Sextus threw himself to the railing, staring down at the dock. The two legionaries were busy lashing a wooden panel across the opening, closing off the space where the gangplank had laid.

Two men splashed in the water below, hands groping against the smooth marble facing of the harbor wall. A crowd pressed against a stone balustrade above them, staring at the ship with wild, wide eyes. Everyone ignored the men—stonemasons by the colored cords twisted into their tunics—as they struggled helplessly in the water. A guttural moan of despair rose from the mob, though no single person seemed to have raised their voice in a shout.

Sextus grabbed the nearest legionary's shoulder. 'We can't leave,' he hissed, pointing down the harborside. The crowd was beginning to mill, disturbed by some commotion. Light flashed on metal, though the sun had grown very dim, shrinking to a pale disc hidden in heavy viridian clouds. 'There are still Romans trapped ashore!'

'Get away from me.' The legionary turned on Sextus, shoving his hand away. He looked sick, face sallow behind a stiff black beard. He clutched the axe with both hands, knuckles white against the close-grained wood.

'Those are our tent mates,' Sextus said, voice rising in horror. 'We don't leave them behind!'

'Get away!' The man shouted, pushing Sextus back with the axe handle.

On the deck, Frontius stared up, lips nearly white with pain. 'Sextus...'

'Look at them,' the engineer shouted, turning on the other soldiers standing by the railing. He waved at a band of men in armor pushing through the mob. Other men pursued, swords and spears hacking and stabbing, striking down men and women packed so closely together they could not flee. 'They need us! Stop rowing! Turn the ship!'

The sweeps continued to dip into the harbor and the massive ship inched away from the dock a yard at a time. A good twenty feet of open water now separated the hull from the marble facing. One of the stonemasons had vanished under the slowly roiling brown surface. The other managed to dig his fingers into a mossy crevice between two stones. He was shouting weakly, begging for help.

The crowd ignored him, staring at the grain hauler. Aboard, the legionaries at the railing stared back. No one spoke, and the oars dipped again, opening the distance another yard.

'Ho, the ship!'

A strong, familiar voice rang out. A tall man with a singular red beard shoved through the crowd to the retaining wall. Barely a half-dozen men still fought at his side, several of them sorely wounded. Only yards away, through the mob, Sextus saw the Arabs pressing, blades rising and falling in fierce, brutal cuts. People were screaming now and the entire mob seemed to wake with a start. It moved, a herd surging, spooked by summer thunder. Twenty or thirty people—those jammed closest to the water—were shoved into the harbor with a mighty splash. Sextus jerked as if struck with a whip.

'Throw them ropes,' he shouted, turning again to the other legionaries. They stared back, faces blank. 'Fools!' the engineer snarled at them, then ran along the railing. He found a heavy rope knotted at intervals and snatched up the coil. He ran back, screaming curses at the other men on the ship.

He reached the gangway and knelt, hands quick as they wound the rope into a heavy bolt stapled to the deck. Sextus braced his foot, standing, and hurled the coil into the water. On the dock, the legionaries turned at bay, forming a too-small circle with their shields. The engineer leaned out, screaming at the top of his lungs —'Here! Here! Swim to the ship!'

The red-bearded man looked back over his shoulder, a spatha bare in his hand. Sextus recognized him at last. 'Lord Aurelian! Here, Lord Prince, here!'

Shrieking, the mob parted, men and women trampling those too slow to flee. The Arabs pushed through behind a thicket of spears. The legionaries on the wharf locked shields and the ring and clatter of steel on steel drifted across the water. Sextus bit his thumb, silently begging the prince to leap into the water. Instead, his powerful head was clearly visible among the others, his long blade flashing, driving back the first rush of the enemy.

Oars rose, shedding brown, silty water, and the ship crabbed out into the harbor. Two burly legionaries bent to the steering oars on the rear deck, trying to turn the grain hauler to catch the wind. The sails—huge squares of stitched canvas—luffed as the ship turned. For a moment, forward motion ceased, though all four oars dug deep into brown water, the crews on the sweeps groaning with effort.

'Here, my lord,' Sextus screamed again, beckoning.

A towering Arab clashed with the prince and the two men—each head and shoulders above his companions—exchanged a fierce series of cuts and slashes. The ringing clang of blade on blade was clear even on shipboard. The prince held his own, then advanced, whirling the spatha in a driving attack. The Arabs fell back, stabbing at his feet and head with their spears. A clear space emerged, though in the brief interlude, two more of the legionaries—already wounded—had been stricken down.

More green turbans pushed through the crowd and the engineer realized the avenues leading down to the docks were now filling with a rustling, shuffling mob far different from the panicked citizens who had first rushed down to the shore.