Thomas Harlan - The storm of Heaven

"It will take time for the infantry to cross the creek, Vahan. Your horsemen are swift… they can easily make up the difference. You have your task, in any case. Drive off their camelry on the left. I will not send your heavy horsemen up that hill."

Vahan ground a fist into his high-cantled saddle. It was old-fashioned, with four jutting corners and a flimsy-looking belly strap. He gestured, stabbing out with a thick finger. "Lord Prince, you haven't fought these bandits! See, there, before the mass of their army? Lines of horsemen already advance at a trot-those men are javelineers, Lord Prince. They will take great delight in striking down your legionaries from a distance. They will have a height advantage, to give the flight of their javelins greater weight."

Theodore nodded absently, watching with professional interest as the legionaries crossed the streambed, keeping a steady pace, keeping even spacing among the cohorts. Looking down like this, seeing the whole of the battle spread out before him like a map, he felt a fleeting giddiness. Couriers and riders stood close to hand, just behind him on the crest of the hill, fleet horses waiting. His orders could fly on those hooves to any point of the battle line in moments…

"Lord Prince!"

Theodore shook his head slightly and turned back to the Armenian. "Yes?"

"Pray, signal your men to halt their advance until they can be supported!"

"Oh," Theodore said airily, "they are. Watch and you will see." Then he said, crossly, "You should not have left your command. Such things set a poor example for your troops."

– |Mohammed squatted atop a splintered black boulder, hands resting easily on the tops of his thighs. Tan-and-white robes fell around his boots, pooling on the cracked rock. He was very still, letting a sluggish breeze flow over him. The sky was clear, though horses curveting in the valley below him raised clouds of pale yellow dust. Some of it was beginning to hang in the air. In a few hours, a thick pall would lie across the whole battle. There, below, several thousand of his riders were darting towards the slow-moving Roman advance.

"Do they think this is a game?" Zoe's voice growled up from below. She was sitting at the base of the boulder, in a tiny scrap of shade, her sword, sheathed, over her long legs. A white veil draped her face, revealing only dark, brooding eyes. "Seeing how close they can come to the enemy? Flaunting their riding skill with a shot from full gallop, standing in the saddle?"

"Some do," Mohammed said, voice still and quiet. "See how their shot falls amongst the enemy? Like rain falling in the dust."

"Will it become a deluge?" Anticipation sparked in Zoe's voice and Mohammed could hear stiff linen robes rustling on the stones.

"No," Mohammed said, "not yet. Khalid wishes to test their discipline."

"Huh." The sound was filled with grievance. "He is a reckless boy. It is unwise to trust him with such authority."

Mohammed tasted the air, the tip of his tongue appearing briefly between his lips. There was a brittle taste. He continued to watch.

"You are jealous, I think," he said after a moment. "Your cousin is quite taken with our young Eagle-on some days they seem inseparable. Khalid is an… attractive man, in many ways."

Zoe just hissed in disgust, settling back against the crumbling rock. "Men are fools."

– |Colonna avoided a pale gray stone jutting from the slope. His hobnailed sandals slapped on the dry ground, adding more dust to the cloud thickening around him. "Advance! Step left! Advance! Step left!"

The centurion's throat was already hoarse as he shouted over the rattle and din of his men advancing, shields held up before them. He moved, five paces behind the men in the third rank of his detachment. This was slow work, tramping up the long incline, ducking away from arrows whistling out of the sky. Luckily, they were still at long range for the light bows these tribesmen used. The men in the first and second ranks were already slowing, not just from the fatigue of humping sixty pounds of armor, shield and weapon, but from the steady tension caused by the snap of shafts striking the ground around them. Some men had four or five arrows studding their shields.

Colonna, even in the rear rank, was grateful that the enemy hadn't really come at them in force. Not yet. He looked over his shoulder, towards the low hill where the Lord Prince stood. Dust smeared across the sky, making it difficult to see. He could make out swatches of bright color and gleaming metal. The sun, full in the sky, burned on his neck. Soon his armor would be too hot to touch. He guessed, in the pale yellow murk, that most of the army had crossed the streambed.

"Advance! Step left!" He was still shouting, automatically. Shaking his head, he wrenched his attention back to the men. Some of them had drifted to the right, behind the shelter of their fellow's shields. More arrows whistled out of the sky.

"Accursed dogs!" Colonna, groaning a little, picked up his pace and lashed at the backs of the men in front of him with a long stick. "Keep left, keep left!"

An arrow flashed past his face, black fletching only inches away, and the centurion swore bitterly. I don't want to die here, not on some damned rocky hillside in some pox-ridden flea bite of a province…

There was a thundering sound and he raised himself up, looking over the shoulders of his men. The ranks of the bandits had parted, making avenues through their line. Robed horsemen charged down the hillside, helms glittering in the morning sun. The sky darkened with arrows.

– |"Do you feel that?" Mohammed's voice was very faint. "Stand ready."

Zoe looked up, craning her neck to try and catch a glimpse of the Arab on the boulder above her. It was no use and she stood, slinging saber and sheath over her shoulder in one fluid movement. She put a hand, gloved in leather, covered with tightly sewn rings of Damascene steel, on the corroded black stone. The Quraysh was still squatting there, forearms on his knees, but now his eyes were closed.

The back of Zoe's neck started to tingle and she turned slowly, dark brown eyes narrowing to study the valley below. There was something in the air, a familiar-tasting sound and an unheard touch…

The Queen of Palmyra's eyes widened and her fine-boned features, dark with the sun, twisted into a snarl of rage. The sensation trembling in the unseen world was all too familiar.

Sorcery. The Legion thaumaturges are putting forth their strength.

– |Theodore urged his stallion forward, out from under the cool shade of the parasols, and squinted, watching the far slope with interest. Behind him and to one side, Vahan was cursing continuously and with ill-disguised heat. The Prince shook his head in delight, hiding a grin behind his hand. "Vahan, you've fought these desert rats before?"

"Aye, Lord Prince, many times. Your legionnaires won't catch them… they'll take a dreadful punishment from javelins and swift, stabbing attacks by those lancers. When your men rush them, they will gallop away. If your men stand fast, they will swelter in this heat, endlessly, while the bandits pick at them with bows from a dis-"

"Good," the Prince interrupted. "Then I don't need to explain. If we had time and leisure, I would bid you stay, and watch the battle as it unfolds." The Prince's voice changed in timbre, becoming cold and commanding. "But you, sir, are absent from your command. Get yourself back to the left flank and get your lancers and cataphracts sorted out! In a little while, the enemy will be fully engaged along our front, yet our superior numbers will allow us to spill round his left. That is your task, Vahan, get to it!"

Theodore motioned with his head to the nearest of the Faithful and the Armenian found a pair of blond giants at his elbows. They grinned. Vahan swore under his breath and reined his horse around. The Scandians stepped back, long axes across their shoulders.