The Dark Lord (78 page)

Nicholas scuttled backwards, gasping for breath. Curly-beard advanced swinging to his left, while the other Persian soldier dodged in from the right. The Latin had managed to claw a long knife from his belt, but the loss of Brunhilde left him feeling naked and powerless. She had never been far from his grasp in nine years and his left hand continued to grope reflexively for her familiar, wire-wrapped hilt.

The big Persian grinned, lunging in, cavalry sword darting in a sharp cut at Nicholas' head. The Latin sprang to the side, slashing automatically at Curly-beard's exposed arm. The knife cut empty air, nearly a foot short of the enemy. Sparks flew from a column as the Persian sword rang away from ancient stone. Nicholas gave ground, scrabbling backwards up a pair of steps and into the side gallery.

Out of the corner of his eye, Nicholas glimpsed movement and flinched away. The other Persian's sword blurred past, glancing from his arm. The legion armor clanked, but held, turning the blow. Nicholas spun, wrenching his arm from harm's way. The Persian soldier dragged his sword back into guard, but the Latin jumped in, kicking, and caught his thigh with a hobnailed sole. Cursing, the Persian scuttled back. Nicholas suppressed a wild urge to charge the man with only a knife, ducking away among the pillars instead.

Curly-beard leapt after him, shouting, and then the other Persian gave chase as well.

Thyatis pivoted, swinging the iron bar with the entire force of her upper body. The corpse-thing blocked with a forearm encased in overlapping black scales. Her blow clanged against heavy armor and bounced back. Struggling to keep hold of the vibrating bar, Thyatis kicked at the thing's knee. Her boot hit iron plate guarding the joint and glanced away.

Ignoring the blow, the corpse charged, throwing a gauntleted, spiked fist at her head. Thyatis blocked high, feeling incredible power in the undead arm, then rolled away. Breathless, she bounded up, smashing aside another punch with the iron bar. Sparks popped from the violent intersection of metal and metal. Thyatis gave ground, parrying desperately as the corpse stormed in, fists slamming at her face and body. The bar rang and rang again.

Gods, this thing is strong!
Thyatis ran out of room, her back forced against the platform. Snarling, she gave a short rush, batting aside a swinging fist, hearing wire crack under the force of her blow, then jammed the bar shorthanded into the remains of the withered skull. More bone shattered, skittering across the floor. The other massive arm slammed across the front of the body, but Thyatis was inside its reach. She dropped to the floor, rolling out and up in a single, fluid motion.

Headless, the corpse swung towards her, metal scales bouncing away across sandstone.

Thyatis circled, tensed for the next attack. It came with a rush, corpse legs propelling the black shape towards her, arms spread wide for a grappling crush. The Roman woman's feet flashed on the floor, the iron bar swinging over her shoulder. She swung into a crouch as the dark shape slammed into her back, breastplate cracking against the iron bar. A smooth, effortless motion followed as she rotated shoulders, body, and a gracefully sinking leg into a fluid arc. The corpse-thing flew head over heels and slammed into the stone floor with a resounding crash.

Thyatis bounced up, exultant and immediately caught sight of a middle-aged Persian man with a neat beard and haunted, deep-set eyes. His fist punched towards her, haloed by whirling light and guttering flame. A roaring shriek filled the chamber, reverberating from the domed ceiling. The Roman woman threw herself forward, but she knew the reflex came just a grain too late.

Artabanus staggered, the hilt of a throwing blade jutting from his throat. He tried to cry out, but choked, blood flooding from his mouth, fouling in his beard. The power he'd summoned to hand ignited, blasting wildly across the chamber in a series of burning blue-white rings. Flame lashed across fat-bellied pillars, superheating the limestone. Smoke boiled away from stone and the plaster of the wall behind the row of columns burst alight. Almost invisible tongues of blue fire rippled across frozen waves, blackening cedar-crowned islands and masted ships.

Shirin bolted from the shelter of a hidden doorway, vaulting over a stone bench. She seized the hilt of her blade, then kicked the dying man free. Blood spattered on her robes, but the man's arm and hair were already burning, ignited by his own blast. Ignoring the hoarse gasps and drumming feet, she snatched up the longsword flickering dimly in the shadows.

"Roman! Catch!" Nicholas heard a strangely accented voice shout and darted out from behind a pillar. The wounded Persian soldier was dead ahead, startled and turning to look over his shoulder. A bar of dim blue-white flew overhead. Eyes wide in surprise and exaltation, the Latin leapt up, eager fingers seizing Brunhilde from the air. He came down hard, then skipped aside, cursing in alarm.

Curly-beard's mace smashed on stone. Nicholas backpedaled, settling his grip.

Behind the Persian cavalryman, the Latin saw the wounded soldier topple, neck twisted at a strange angle. A woman in desert robes, long, glossy black hair whirling around her face, dropped to the ground, recovering from a spinning kick. Nicholas caught only a glimpse of her face, but the image burned in his memory—glorious brown eyes, a straight, noble nose, bow-shaped lips, a feral snarl of victory.

A reflexive block—nerve and muscle responding before conscious thought could interfere—saved him from losing his head and snapped attention back to the matter at hand. Curly-beard's cavalry sword licked back, but the big Persian shouldered in with his other hand, the flanged mace swinging hard at Nicholas' crossguard. The Latin danced back, weaving Brunhilde in a figure eight. The Persian grinned, teeth white in a thick, black beard, advancing in a sideways scuttle.

Nicholas lunged in counter, sword tip flicking at the man's inner arm. The mace blocked with a ringing
clang
and then there was a flurry of blows, each man lunging and striking in turn, boots scuffling on tile, the ring and clash of steel harsh in the air.

Thyatis looked up from the floor, amazed to still feel life in her limbs, and groaned to see the glorious wall paintings rippling behind a sheet of flame. Smoke boiled into the air, filling the apse of the ceiling. A dull roar grew, coupled with a staccato cracking sound as ancient stone expanded in the heat. Plaster shivered, splitting along ancient foundation lines, millennia-old dust mixing furiously with burning paint. She scrambled to her feet, groping on the hex tiles for a weapon.

Only yards away, the shape of the dark captain shuddered on the floor, then rose, spilling black dust, fragments of bone and broken iron scales. The head was entirely gone and one arm hung limply at its side. Thyatis swallowed, backing up, mouth dry in fear. The shape stood, leaning a little to one side, then lurched toward her. The crushing pressure was building in the air again.

"Let's go!" Shirin seized her arm, dragging Thyatis back. "Look later, you dumb ox!"

Thyatis tried to speak, but the dreadful vision of the undead thing reaching for her held her captive, a cobra's prey hypnotized by the swaying hood. Shirin slapped her hard on the side of the head. Blazing pain in her ear snapped Thyatis out of her daze and she skipped back, shouting in fear, from clutching iron fingers.

Together, they sprinted out of the chamber, away from the shambling corpse-thing and into the shadowed side tunnel. Behind them, Artabanus convulsed on the floor in the final throes of death, the gradient of his evocation rushing to violent release, lightning leaking from his mouth and eyes, flaring ruby red through vaporizing blood. A stunning
crack
rolled and boomed in the chamber, coterminous with an incandescent flare of white light.

Nicholas stumbled backwards, blinded by a stuttering roar, and tripped over the body of one of the Persian soldiers. His head smashed against tile and he felt the room spin, then vanish in a billowing cloud of gray-black smoke. He coughed weakly, unable to rise. Someone ran past him, but he couldn't see who it was. Smoke burned in his throat and pinched a flood of tears from his eyes. Flames roared closer, the heat beating at his face like a hammer.

The sight of Thyatis fleeing the hall, hand in hand with the desert woman, abandoning him, was all too clear in his memory. He wept in frustration, rolling over, head throbbing with dull, thudding pain. He'd dropped Brunhilde again. Blinded, he groped wildly on the floor, searching for her.

Dahvos mounted a broad flight of steps with a swift pace, noon sun gilding his wheat-colored hair. Full summer rendered the day hot and bright, hazing with steadily rising humidity. He did not pause on the threshold of the high doorway, though a moment passed before his eyes adjusted to the dimness within. Guardsmen—attired in full Legion armor and bearing the sunburst flash of the
comes
Alexandros—drew back, seeing a grim, fixed expression on the Khazar's face. The easterner's riding boots rang sharply on dimpled marble flooring as he entered, drawing the attention of nearly everyone in the vast hall.

Clerks and captains alike looked up and a frustrated looking priest started towards Jusuf, hand raised in admonition, then halted, seeing the glitter in the khagan's eyes. Like the lesser temples in the city, the house of Zeus was a long rectangle, but it beggared all others for sheer size. The central nave was nearly five hundred feet from end to end, and each aisle of pillars was of gargantuan size, for they supported two decks of galleries overlooking the main floor.

High above, a series of vast circular windows piercing the walls, once filled with colored glass, had been reduced to spiderwebs of copper and iron—allowing thick, dust-sparkling beams of sunlight to fall in brilliant pools on the floor below. In the harsh light, much of the temple interior was in deep shadow and the domed ceilings—ornamented with lavish golden mosaics—were hidden from the casual eye.

At the far end of the nave, in a circle of sunlight, the
comes
Alexandros hunched over a trestle table covered with papers, maps, cups and wooden ledgers. A block of heavy, plain stone rose behind the Macedonian, draped with irregular dark cloth. Dahvos approached, alone, without his customary escort or the constant shadow of his half-brother. Alexandros did not look up, an expression of complete concentration on his shadowed face.

One of the Goths arrayed around the table turned at the unexpected noise, squinting out of the pool of sunlight. Dahvos brushed past him without a word and the northerner darkened in rage at the affront. "Here now," he growled, beard bristling out.

He reached to lay a meaty hand on the Khazar's shoulder. Dahvos turned, fixing the man with a basilisk stare. His face was a mask of light and dark, but the Goth saw something in glittering blue eyes and lowered his hand. "Pardon, my lord..." he stammered.

Dahvos' nostrils flared minutely, then he turned to the shorter, lither man still standing, staring at the maps and charts laid out before him on the table. "Lord Alexandros."

"Kagan Dahvos," the Macedonian replied without looking up.

The Khazar expressed no obvious reaction at the slight, though the angry gleam in his eyes deepened. Instead, he drew a parchment packet from his belt and laid the cream-colored paper on the table. "These... orders... arrived in my encampment last night. You sent them?"

Alexandros glanced up, raised an eyebrow, then returned his attention to the maps. "Yes."

A faint, wintry smile glanced across Dahvos' lips, then vanished again. "The Roman army has completed preparations for a campaign across the Propontis? You have sufficient supplies? Enough shipping, wagons, pack animals, servants?"

Alexandros nodded, finally looking up from the letter he had been reading, eyes flickering around the circle of men waiting at the edge of the light. "So the orders said, kagan."

Dahvos folded back the first page of the packet with his finger. "'You command my...
auxillia...
to cross in advance of your main body,'" he read, "'to secure the opposite shore and disperse any Persian resistance in the neighborhood of Chalcedon. The Roman army will follow the subsequent day.'" The Khazar looked up, lips thinning in a humorless smile.

Alexandros nodded in agreement. "That is correct."

"Ships are mentioned—merchant ships and barges—which will provide transport for the crossing. Many are named, as are their captains." Dahvos' forefinger transfixed a second sheet in the packet.

"Yes." Alexandros stood up straight, his face filled with weary resignation. "They were."

Dahvos met his eyes and Alexandros blinked, all too aware of the furious anger boiling behind the Khazar's bland, controlled expression. The kagan bared his teeth in a tight smile. "These ships you mention,
comes
, are in my direct employ. They were—they
are
—hired to provide my army with supplies, hospital and transport." Dahvos' voice began to rise, a sharp tone coloring his words. "My men, my
cataphracts
, lancers, bowmen, scouts, sutlers, blacksmiths... they are
my
men. Under my command."

Alexandros raised a hand in a sharp motion. "Kagan Dahvos, I under—"

"My
nation
," Dahvos snapped, overriding the Macedonian, "is a Roman ally, not a subject." He looked around at the officers and captains watching with wide eyes, then back to Alexandros with a long-toothed grin. "We are not sworn to the Emperor, we are not
feodus
. We came to fight beside our
friends
, against the Persians." The Khazar picked up the packet with the tips of his thumb and forefinger, dangling the papers in the air. "Allies are
consulted
, not ordered. Allies are equals, not servants."

The packet fell, clattering on the tabletop, papers spilling awry among the cups and inkstones.

Alexandros stiffened, hand brushing a wayward lock of hair from his high forehead, eyes narrowing. His jaw tightened for a moment, then anger receded, driven down by an almost visible effort of will. "Then I will ask, Kagan Dahvos—will you cross the Propontis, to clear the way into Asia?"