The Dark Lord

'You spoke with the god's voice, without searching your heart. You strove in battle, without spying your enemy's banner or shield. Into an innocent's breast, you thrust your spear, blind in fury.' A shadow fell across the Quraysh's face, but he could not see the slim, silver-gray figure leaning over him, harvest-gold hair shot with pale green, lambent umber eyes glistening with tears. 'Illusion you took as a lover,' he heard, as from a great distance. 'Embraced as a dear friend. Pride killed you, son of the earth, who was born from clots of blood, mixed with clay.'

The weight grew and grew, grinding Mohammed into the earth, skull fracturing under the pressure with a soft pop, thin, wasted shoulders flaking into dust.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The Roman Camp at Pelusium, Lower Egypt

'What was that?' Sextus raised his head, nostrils flaring. He stopped, reining in his mule, and held out a hand to bring Frontius up short. Both men were riding along the military road atop the interior wall of the Roman fortifications, heading for a mile-fort where—they were informed—the Caesar Aurelian was encamped. The fighting platform rose up directly to their right, reinforced with palm logs and slabs of looted stone. Men were sleeping along the rampart, wrapped in their field blankets, helmets and scabbarded swords close at hand. Pyramids of spears and javelins stood every dozen yards. At intervals, sentries leaned against the wall, watching the eastern darkness.

'I didn't hear anything.' Frontius squinted around, raising his lantern. Butter-yellow light spilled across a roadway of planed logs. Off to his left, fields of stumps lay under a starry sky. A mile or more away, torches and bonfires outlined the square shape of a Legion camp. The moon had already set in the west, leaving nothing to dim the vast sweep of the river of milk. To the north, the engineer could make out a gleam of starlight flashing on the waters of the Inner Sea.

'I smelled something.' Dismounting, Sextus scrambled up the fighting platform and climbed onto a wooden step behind the wall. Frontius, cursing mildly, followed. Peering over the embrasure, he saw more darkness—the dry river channel fronting the long earthwork, crisscrossed by lines of stakes—then the dim lights of the first wall and its garrison. Beyond that, there was nothing—only velvety darkness and the night.

'What time is it?' Sextus whispered. Frontius looked at the sky, searching for the gleam of Venus or Mars. They were low in the west, chasing the moon.

'Nearly dawn,' he replied. His nose tickled. 'Feh! What is that?'

Sextus thumped him on the shoulder. 'The wind is turning from the east. That's an entire army awake and pissing out in the desert.'

Frontius' eyebrows raised, then he sneezed. Disgusted, he wiped his nose. 'We'd better hurry. His lordship needs to know about the dam.'

The two engineers rode up to the gate of the mile-fort in haste, mules bleating in protest. The portal was open, torches blazing all around, an entire century of grizzled-looking veterans standing watch. Sextus slid from the mule, slapping away a customary bite, and saluted the centurion in charge. Runners were leaving the gate in a steady stream, each man holding a paper lantern at the end of a carry pole. The watch had weapons drawn and bare, their helmets cinched tight under stubbled jaws.

'I'm Sextus, First Minerva, a message from Scortius—to see the Caesar Aurelian.'

The watch commander eyed him suspiciously and lifted his chin at a man—a priest—standing nearby. The Egyptian had his eyes half-closed, oblivious to the constant, quiet bustle all around him. 'Menkaure? These two clean?'

After a moment, the priest nodded. At the same time, Sextus felt a tingling sensation, as if soft feathers brushed against his ears and neck. He shuddered, tossing his head. Frontius was scratching his nose furiously, scowling at everyone.

'Go on,' the centurion said. His men parted, allowing the two engineers to hurry inside the fortress. Like its companions along the length of the fortifications, it was a hollow square, surrounded by a high, raised earthen wall and a palisade of palm logs, mud brick and—at the corners, where watchtowers loomed against the black sky—blocks of carefully hoarded stone. The lower delta was bereft of most building materials save mud and palms. Sextus squished across the muddy courtyard, weaving his way through groups of soldiers. The men were in full armor already, drinking from steaming cups, chewing on flat bread. Kitchen slaves moved among them, handing out cloth bags of bread and dried meat. The courtyard was poorly lit and it took Sextus a moment to find the Caesar's tents.

Within, a blaze of white light illuminated everything. The engineers halted, squinting, half-blinded by radiance spilling from crystalline globes hung from the ceiling in nets of bronze chain. When they could see again, Aurelian was waving them into the main room of the tent. The Caesar was surrounded by a phalanx of clerks and scribes, runners kneeling nearby, and two thin old Egyptian priests lurking behind his worktable.

'Sextus, Frontius—Mercury speeds you into the arms of Mars tonight!' Aurelian smiled, teeth white in the bushy thicket of his red beard. 'The sun will be up soon and the Persians will be coming at us, I think.'

Sextus nodded, saluting the prince. 'You can smell them, my lord. The wind has turned from the east.'

'I know.' Aurelian rubbed his own nose. 'The men on the first wall can hear them moving. Sound travels well over the desert.' The prince motioned them closer, then said: 'How stand things among the reeds?'

Sextus waggled a hand in the air. The huge project twenty miles up the arm of the Nile had been giving the Romans quite a time. 'Well, my lord... things could be better.'

Aurelian frowned, bending close. Even here, in a tent crawling with his own men, under the aegis of his own thaumaturges, the prince was minded to be circumspect. 'What do you mean? Scortius sent no word of trouble.'

Both engineers shrugged. 'You know how poor this soil is, my lord, all bogs, quicksand and alluvial mud. No bone to this land, no stone, no spine! There was a subsidence yesterday; it collapsed part of the western dyke. The weight of the dam was too much for the ground to hold.' Sextus shook his head, hands spread wide. 'So do the gods will.'

'How many feet of water did we lose?' The prince bit at his thumb, brow creased in concern.

'Only two or three,' Frontius said, leaning in. His squint was worse in this brilliant light. 'We rushed hods of fresh earth and stone to the breach and sank a barge filled with cane bundles in the gap.'

'Scortius had us check the entire length of the dam for settling...' Sextus continued, lips pursed. 'The whole face is starting to crack. You know the project has been a rush from the beginning—well, we've never sealed the inner face of the dam—and now the levee itself is soaking up the river water, getting heavier and heavier. Without deep stone pilings, the entire structure is just too massive for the underlying silt to support.'

'I understand.' Aurelian's face cleared. The prince snapped his fingers, and a runner jumped up. 'A message for Scortius, at the Reed Sea dam,' he said to the boy. 'The Persians are preparing to attack. The dam must hold for another day. He must stand by for a mirror signal. Hurry!'

The boy scrambled off through the crowd and was gone. Aurelian turned back to the two engineers. 'Have there been any Persian raids on the area around the dam?'

Sextus shook his head. 'In that morass? No, my lord. All quiet.'

'Very well.' The prince looked down at the parchment map on his table, thoughtfully stroking his beard with powerful fingers. The paper showed the environs of the town, with the Nile channel just to the west, then the four Legion camps arrayed between the outskirts of Pelusium and the secondary, inner wall of the fortifications. A dry canal between the secondary wall and the first, facing the Persians in the east. Another dry channel—an old irrigation canal—fronted the forward Roman position. Each half-mile along the outer works, a square bastion jutted back from the earthworks. The second wall was also provided with strong points, each offset from their companions in the forward wall.

'We expect a massive, sharp attack somewhere along the line today. There is no 'funnel' in the ground to the east, no natural avenue of advance. It's all open, rolling dunes, salt scrub and scrawny trees.' The prince measured the map with his hand. 'Their army is mixed, horse and foot alike. Were it mostly horse, I think they would attack along the axis of the old road—the footing is better. But now... I think they may attempt to strike at the southern end of the fortifications.'

Sextus and Frontius examined the map. The Roman walls ran south into the huge extent of swamps and bogs making up the reed sea. Another five miles south of the last Roman bastion, the dam lay hidden among the