Eric Flint: In the Heart of Darkness

The smile faded. Sorrow remained.

The eunuch turned away, and began walking toward the door. Theodora's voice halted him.

" Why, Narses? "

For the first time, there was anguish as well as hatred in her voice. Narses, without turning, simply shrugged.

"Ambition," he said.

"No. Not that. Why this ?"

Narses turned his head. His eyes met those of Theodora's. There was a hint of tears in her eyes. Just a hint.

Narses fought back his own tears.

"There was no need. And-"

He could not face those eyes. He looked away. Harshly: "I did not stop loving you, child, simply because I planned to murder you."

Anguish fled the Empress. Only the hell-voice remained:

"You should have killed me, traitor. You will regret it, coward ."

Narses shook his head.

"No, Theodora, I won't. Not ever ."

A moment later, he was gone. Theodora gazed down at her husband. Justinian's moans were growing louder. Soon, he would regain consciousness and begin to scream.

The Empress lifted his head off her lap and set it gently on the carpet.

She had something to attend to.

Crawling on her hands and knees, Theodora made her way to the body of the nearest soldier. She drew a dagger from the corpse's sword-belt.

Then, still crawling, she began making her way toward John of Cappadocia.

The Empress did not crawl because she was unable to stand, or because she was injured, or because she was in a state of shock.

No. She crawled simply because she wanted the Cappadocian to see her coming.

He did. And then, despite the agony which held him paralyzed, tried to scream.

But he couldn't. He couldn't make a sound; couldn't move a muscle. He could only watch.

Theodora crawled toward him, the dagger in her hand. Her eyes were fixed on those of the praetorian prefect.

She wanted those eyes.

Hell-gaze. Hell-crawl.

It was the last thing John of Cappadocia would ever see, and he knew it.

Three minutes later, Belisarius burst into the room. Behind him came his cataphracts and Irene.

All of them skidded to a halt.

Irene clapped her hand over her mouth, gasping. Menander turned pale. Anastasius tightened his jaws. Valentinian grinned.

Belisarius simply stared. But he too, for a moment, was transfixed by the sight.

Transfixed, not by the sight of the bodies littering the chamber. Not by the sight of Justinian, moaning, blinded. Not even by the sight of the praetorian prefect, prostrate, screaming in a silent rictus, his back arched with agony.

No, it was the sight of the Empress. Squatting over the dying traitor, a bloody knife in one hand, her imperial robes held up by the other. Urinating into the empty eyesockets of John of Cappadocia.

The rocket soared up into the sky and exploded high above the walls of the Hippodrome. A thundering cry followed, from the assembled mob within.

" Nika! Nika ! "

" `Victory,' is it?" hissed Antonina. She leaned over her saddle and whispered to Maurice:

"Tell me what to do."

Maurice smiled. "You already know what to do." He pointed forward. They were approaching the looming structure from the southwest. Ahead of them, fifty yards away, began a broad stone staircase which swept up to a wide entrance. The entrance was thirty yards across, and supported by several columns.

"Once we get in there, it'll be like a knife fight in a kitchen. There won't be any room for maneuver. Just kill or be killed."

Antonina grimaced. The entrance they were approaching was called the Gate of Death.

"How appropriate," she murmured.

Next to her, Maurice snorted contempt. "Can you believe it?" he demanded. "They didn't post a guard. Not even a single sentinel."

They were now twenty yards from the beginning of the staircase. Antonina halted her horse and began to dismount.

"There won't be any room for horses in there," she said. Maurice nodded and ordered the cataphracts to dismount. The bucellarii grumbled, but obeyed without hesitation. Much as they hated fighting afoot, they were veterans. They knew full well that cavalry tactics would be impossible inside the Hippodrome.

Antonina drew her cleaver and held it over her head.

" Nothing! Nothing! " she cried, and began marching up the steps.

Her whole army surged after her. But, before she had gone halfway up the staircase, Maurice was holding her back.

"You stay in the rear."

Antonina obeyed. Her army swept around her. After they had all gone by, she and Maurice followed.

By the time they passed through the Gate of Death, some of the grenadiers were already launching their first grenades. Antonina could hear the explosions, as well as the battle cry of her own soldiers.

" Nothing! Nothing ! "

She and Maurice entered the Hippodrome. They were standing on a broad, flat platform. Below them, the wide stone tiers of the Hippodrome-which served as seats and stairway combined-sloped down to the racetrack below.

The three hundred cataphracts were spreading out, filing down the first ten tiers, setting a perimeter. All of them had drawn their bows. In the center, just below her, the grenadiers and their wives had taken their own compact formation. Some of the grenadiers were slinging grenades, but most of them were still occupied in setting up their grenade baskets.

Antonina stared at the enemy, massed on the other side of the Hippodrome. After a quick glance, she ignored the huge mob of faction thugs. Her attention was drawn to the wooden bulwarks positioned on the far curve of the racetrack. She could see the kshatriya muscling around some wooden troughs. She did not recognize the odd wooden devices, but she had no difficulty recognizing the nature of the tubes which the kshatriya were placing in them.

"Rockets," she muttered. She turned to Maurice, standing next to her.

"Tell the army to spread out further. I don't want to give those rockets a concentrated target."

Maurice winced. "That'll make it harder to defend against a mass charge."

Antonina shook her head.

"If all forty thousand of those thugs charge us at once, they'll overwhelm us regardless of how compact we are. But I know that crowd, Maurice. I grew up with them. Forty thousand Hippodrome thugs can swamp less than a thousand soldiers-but not without suffering heavy casualties. Especially in the front ranks."

She pointing toward the mob.

"I guarantee you, Maurice, they know it as well as we do. And every single one of that crowd, right this very moment, is making the same vow."

She laughed, harshly. " `Victory!' is just their official battle cry. The real one-the private, silent one-is: you first! Anybody but me! "

Maurice chuckled. Then, nodded.

"I do believe you're right." A moment later, the hecatontarch was bellowing orders. The cataphracts immediately began spreading out further. Within a minute, they had established a perimeter which encompassed the entire southwestern arc of the Hippodrome. The grenadiers spread out to fill that guarded space. Soon, the grenadiers were scattered into separate small squads, instead of packed into a tight formation.

Not a moment too soon. The Malwa fired their first rockets at the Romans. One of the rockets plowed into the dirt track below them, sending up a cloud of dust. Another soared completely out of the Hippodrome. But the next slammed into a nearby tier.

For all the impressive sound and fury of the explosion, the heavy stone suffered no worse than scorching. And, because the space was vacated, there were no casualties beyond a few grenadiers injured by flying wooden splinters. Minor wounds, no worse.

The grenadiers roared their fury. For the first time since entering the Hippodrome, the grenadiers launched a full volley.