Thomas Harlan - The storm of Heaven

The heavy darts pincushioned the shields, some tearing straight through the heavy laminate. Some of the legionaries in the front ranks fell, their throats pierced, gushing bright red blood onto the ground.

"Loose!" Colonna screamed.

Behind the first four ranks of Romans, two lines of men cocked their shoulders and flung their javelins. The heavy wooden shafts, capped with triangular iron heads, whipped through the air and tore into the ranks of the Arabs as they wheeled away. Dozens of riders fell, light leather and mail armor pierced by the heavy bolts. More horses screamed and bucked, or fell heavily onto the sandy ground.

Colonna hissed in triumph. "Halt fire and re-form!"

"Advance!" The Romans untangled their shields and shook out their line, orderlies dragging the dead and wounded away from the front rank. Men from the second and third ranks stepped up, their shields filling the gaps. The legion advanced a pace at a time.

The Arab horsemen withdrew in a cloud of dust, robes flapping in the wind of their passage. Gravel spattered on the faces of the shields, making a sound like rain on a roof of wooden shingles. The legionaries pressed up the hill at a steady pace. Dust settled out of the air, coating their faces. The swirl of javelineers faded back, while other riders in black robes with green flashing swept in. These men had long bows made from cane. Single arrows snapped through the air. Colonna ducked aside again and cursed, realizing that the screening force was shooting for officers.

– |"O, Lord of the Wasteland, fill me with your strength."

Mohammed ignored the battle spreading up the slope below him. Six months before, he would have been a-horse, riding hard along the line, directing his squadrons and regiments into battle. Clan standards would have fluttered at his shoulder. Messengers would have been rushing up to him, looking for orders, carrying word from the flanks. Today, Khalid and Jalal bore that burden. He could feel the shape of the battle, though, and there was a trill of fear in his heart.

The Romans advanced steadily, hobnailed sandals eating up the long slope a pace at a time. Their numbers overlapped the Arab line, too, and soon the right flank might be overwhelmed. He was not worried about his left wing, anchored against the cliffs lining the edge of the plateau. Horses thundered past, making black pebbles on the top of the boulder quiver and dance. Mohammed pressed his hands against the decaying lava, feeling the strength in the earth.

"We go forth against your enemies. Our faith is strong and we abide by the laws that you have laid down to govern the lives of men."

He sang to himself, reciting the prayers that had come to him while he had lain exposed on the summit of An'Nour. The voice from the clear air had spoken, showing him the movement of the stars in their courses, revealing the passage of cranes and ravens in the sky. Now it steadied his mind as he opened himself to the shining power that filled the world.

"We submit ourselves to your will, O Lord of the World. Give us strength."

Grains of sand and dust spattered against the back of Mohammed's cloak. Blood seeped from beneath his fingernails as they dug into the ancient, corroded rock.

– |Sweat poured from Zoe's face and neck, soaking the doublet and cotton shirt under her armor. Her mind was far away from her body, struggling in the unseen world. Her eyes stared, sightless, across a broad valley filled with a vast cloud of dust. Fire burned openly in the sky, hidden powers revealed as they strove in the air above the knots of men grappling on the desert floor.

Together, as they had been trained, Zoe and Odenathus invoked a wheel of burning white and sent it, spinning, into the midst of half-seen forms rushing forth from the wall of gold. Lightning rippled into the dust cloud where the powers met, and the two Palmyrenes staggered, their faces flushed with heat, at the impact. Barely a hundred yards away, the lines of the Decapolis infantry were locked in a din of combat with the Legion.

Zoe, risking the loss of her connection to Odenathus, dropped out of their battle-meld.

The rebel city-dwellers were being pushed back, phalanx bulging between their line and the Ben-Sarid tribesmen on the right. A wedge of Roman helmets was in the gap, their swords and spears flashing with blood. The city-dwellers were fighting hard, but they were not professionals. Luckily, the citizens of the Decapolis were blessed with good, heavy armor and new weapons. Zoe wiped sweat from her eyes. She looked around, seeing the block of Palmyrene exiles still holding their position, making a hedge of steel and iron around the two sorcerers.

"Hadad!" It took a moment to summon enough spit to make her voice work. The commander of the Palmyrene swordsmen jerked around, his face pale with worry.

"My lady!" Hadad scurried over to her, his pale, thin face barely visible in the heavy visored iron helmet strapped to his head. Like most of the men gathered on the slope, he was wearing scaled armor under a surcoat of white and gold, and had a long sword at his side and a round shield slung over his shoulder. "I feared to wake you, but the Gerasans are falling back; we should move you to safety!"

"No," Zoe rasped, dark eyes fierce. "Attack now, leave us. Push back the Romans-otherwise the line will break."

Hadad shook his head violently. "No," he said, "Lord Mohammed directed us to protect you. If you fall, it will go poorly indeed."

Zoe spat on the ground, seeing blood in the sputum. She met the man's eyes squarely and he flinched. "Attack now, or I'll cut you down where you stand. The line must not break."

She unclenched her hand, joints throbbing. The day seemed overlaid by a gray haze. Fatigue, she thought dully. Odenathus and I aren't enough to stop them.

Hadad disappeared, and distantly, through the roaring in her ears, she could hear men shouting. She pushed the sound away, descending into the unseen world again. Power flowed to her, rushing to meet her purpose.

– |"Odd…" Theodore was still on his horse, though hours had passed since the sun had risen. His brother, Heraclius, might have the red cloak and boots, but he could no longer match his younger brother for stamina and strength. "They are standing and fighting."

"They are brave men," Boleslav growled. The captain of the Faithful remained on the hilltop, keeping a close eye on his charge throughout the day. Theodore grinned at the big Northman, knowing that the Faithful were growing restless, seeing the day decided by others when their own axes had yet to taste blood. "They fight like cornered wolves."

The other Faithful, hearing a snatch of the conversation, grunted in assent.

"That is what is odd," Theodore mused. "The rabble of the desert are not brave. They are like the wind, like jackals, feckless, coming and going… yet here, on this day, they stand and fight. I do not understand it. Still, if they want to die on our spears, let them!"

Boleslav turned his shaggy blond head to one of his undercaptains and rumbled some command. The other man nodded sharply and jogged off down the hill, leaping lightly from boulder to boulder. Theodore raised a questioning eyebrow.

Boleslav shrugged, saying, "They shout something as they fight. I send Firdik to hear it."

Theodore nodded absently, one gloved hand stroking his short-cropped beard. Like his brother, he was mostly blond, but his beard came in red. He thought that the Faithful counted him as one of their own. He surely bore more resemblance to them than to the dark-complected Greeks and Anatolians Heraclius ruled.

For now, the Lord Prince thought idly. Brother is sick and may not last the year…

"Ah!" Theodore thrust the thought away and stood in the saddle, feet held securely by the Sarmatian-style stirrups that he had adopted for his own troops. The insufferable Western Emperor Galen might be a sanctimonious, overbred fool, but he could pick good mercenaries. Theodore had learned a great deal from watching the Western Legion during the war against Persia. The Lord Prince did not intend to waste his knowledge.