The Dark Lord

Persian stragglers were passing through the triple line, though their numbers had slowed to one and twos. He waved, drawing the attention of his lieutenant, who was busily moving among the men. 'Kavilar! Stand ready to charge the Romans as they deploy.' The general turned to the cluster of aides and runners gathered behind him.

'You men,' he said, 'quick to the harbor—tell the ship captains to debark as quickly as they fill their decks. The Romans are pressing hard—we want to get as many men away to Chalcedon as possible before they overrun the docks.' Two of the runners nodded sharply, then sprinted off down the hill.

From this height, despite the smoke-blackened apartments surrounding the plaza, Khadames could make out the glittering blue waters of the Golden Horn and the white sails of his small fleet. The sight made the twisting in his stomach worse. Despite the King of King's assurances, the departure of the Arab fleet had left Khadames with too few hulls to carry his entire army to safety in one go. Years of soldiering the length and breadth of Persia had not prepared the elderly general for dealing with ships, currents and loading capacities. Worst of all, to his mind, there was no way the army could make the two-hour voyage across the Propontis to Chalcedon with their horses. Not without dozens of trips back and forth... not when a single warhorse took the space of five men... Yet, what use is my army, he thought bitterly, without horses? We're not infantry, we'll have to walk back to Ctesiphon...

'You and you,' he barked, long-simmering anger spilling over into his voice. 'Take five men each and run to the nearest cross streets, watch for other Roman columns! If they come, send a runner to me immediately!' Both sergeants jogged away, shouting for men from the rear ranks.

Beyond the impossibility of holding the lengthy fortifications, Khadames' army was scattered in a bewildering ruin. Constantinople was far larger than any Persian city and poorly laid out to boot. The streets wound and twisted like snakes, the plazas and squares seemed randomly placed, as if the gods cast them like dust or coins upon broken ground. The old general had heard there were hidden passages under the streets, covered cisterns and buried roads—but his scouts, crawling through the burned-out wreckage, had failed to find any of these secret places. But the Romans will know their own city, he worried, feeling bile rise in his throat. He looked down the hill again. Three merchantmen were pulling out of the harbor, long sweeps working, sails billowing taut with the sharp wind from the north. We're too far from the docks, he realized. We need to fall back down the—

'Here they come!' a dozen men in the front rank shouted as one.

Cursing, Khadames climbed the steps of the abandoned temple to get a better view.

The entire mass of Persians in the plaza stiffened to the right, men closing up ranks behind the shields of their fellows. The second line of men moved up, spears ready in both hands. The rear line milled in slight confusion—some of the fleeing Armenians had joined the Persian formation. Khadames took all this in with one swift glance, then his eyes flew to the mouth of the street leading from the forum of the Bull. Already, he could hear the booming stamp-stamp-stamp of marching men. Dust puffed from the buildings, hazing the air, then a thicket of glittering iron appeared. The long spears of the Roman wall of battle suddenly filled the street, then the close-packed mass of legionaries emerged at a walk from the avenue.

The old general suppressed an atavistic shudder. A phalanx, he thought in amazement, in these late days! Four ranks with sixteen-foot pikes. Who had the time and money to train them this way? To his knowledge, no one had fielded a phalanx in battle since the rebel Indian king Soter Megas had been crushed by the T'u-chueh five hundred years ago. The Romans advanced in good order, their sarissa leveled in three overlapping layers, with a fourth dancing in the air. Heavy, full-face helmets made the Roman soldiers appear monstrous, without even a hint of humanity.

'Steady! Hold. Hold!' screamed the Persian sergeants. Their men started to back away, uneasily aware of the reach of the enemy weapons. 'Charge!'

Khadames held his breath, waiting for the diquans to lunge forward, blades and shields up, to crash into the Roman line. The close-packed ranks of the enemy did not seem maneuverable and getting to sword strokes with them, inside the reach of their spears, would be crucial.

'Charge!' The Persian sergeants ran forward, swords flashing. After a moment's hesitation, the front rank surged forward, each man determined to keep honor, yet still grappling with rising gut-twisting fear of the enemy's forest of bright steel. Drawn by the same terrible compulsion, the diquans in the second rank also moved, a sudden shout bellowing from a hundred throats. Khadames felt his heart leap at the brave sound. 'Shahr-Baraz! Persia!'

'Adorio!' the Romans boomed back, a colossal thundering sound, and the spear wall leapt forward with a glad cry. In the blink of an eye, the phalanx slammed into the Persian rush with a cracking, sharp clang. Khadames stiffened, seeing the front rank of his men stagger. The Roman pikes stabbed viciously, knocking the heavily armored diquans down. The Persians hacked madly at the ashwood spear hafts, trying to chop through the lacquered wood. Mercilessly, the second and third ranks of legionaries stabbed overhand. Heartsick, Khadames saw a diquan, his flowing beard streaked with blood, fall, pierced by two, then three, of the leaf-shaped blades. The man flailed wildly with his cavalry sword, but the enemy was still a dozen feet away, far outside his blows. Roman pikes ground the dying man into the street, then the blades licked back, bright with blood.

For an endless moment, the two masses of men struggled at the edge of the plaza, armor ringing with hammer blows, sergeants shouting hoarsely, the roar of men lost in the fury of combat welling up, reverberating from the walls of the empty houses. Then the Roman line took a step, then another, and the Persian front rank disintegrated. A carpet of dead men littered the octagonal stones of the plaza. The second and third lines of Persians shouted furiously and attacked again, surging forward. The legionary pikes fouled and some of the Armenians—eager to burnish tarnished honor—were among them, hacking wildly, shield to shield with the Romans. A pikeman went down, helmet caved in and the front rank of the phalanx began to erode into knots of struggling men.

'That's it,' Khadames screamed, springing down the steps. He crammed the helmet onto his head, waving at the nearest men. 'Forward, lads, into their flank!'

One of the runners, turning to see what the general wanted, shouted in alarm, pointing back behind Khadames. The general spun, suddenly off-balance, iron shoes skidding on paving worn smooth by centuries of pious traffic. Reflexively, his left arm came up, shield covering his face to his eyes. At the same time, he swung the mace back, ready to strike.

A big oval shield slammed into him, the reinforced iron boss smashing into his hip with a deep crunch. Khadames felt himself lifted from his feet, caught a brief glimpse of a blue-eyed man standing at least a head taller than him behind the Roman scutum, then the sky cartwheeled past and he crashed down on the paving. His helmet rang like a bell on stone, deafening him. Stunned and breathless, the old general gasped for air. A sharp, stabbing pain radiated out of his hip.

Wouldn't happen if I was on my horse, he thought blearily. Got to... get up.

Men with armored greaves on their legs ran past and the sharp ringing of steel on steel filled the air. Khadames pushed himself up on one arm. His mace was gone, wrenched from his hand by the blow. As he rolled over, the pain in his hip spiked and a gray haze washed across his vision. Numbly, he groped for the hilt of his sword. Ormazd take this damned thing...

The sword was trapped under his broken hip. Khadames, teeth gritted against a roaring pain in his head, rolled back, freeing the weapon. The sky blurred past again, partially obscured by rooftops and windows in a white-plastered wall. Heavy, clumsy fingers managed to curl around the wire-wrapped hilt of his blade. There!

A horsetail-plumed helmet obscured the buildings and the sky. Something heavy crunched down on Khadames' neck, metal scraping on metal, pinning him to the ground. Khadames tried to cry out, but only managed to force a gasp past the boot crushing his gorget. He dragged at the sword, feeling the yard length of steel slide free from the sheath. Sunlight flared from the head of a spiked axe, then the old general cried out as the blade whistled through the air. Steel rang on steel, and something crashed against his collarbone.

Bastard's just going to chop my head off! Khadames thought, trying to roll and knock the man from his feet. As he did, a sharp, stabbing pain crushed his chest. Choking, the Persian flailed with