The Storm of Heaven (59 page)

A cold night wind blew from the sea, causing Khalid to wrap a heavy silk-lined cloak close around his broad shoulders. He was sitting in the ruins of a Hellenic temple, astride a broken marble bench. The young general had kindled a small, smokeless fire among the tumbled stones, just enough to warm his feet and give him a little light. The camp, thronging with Sahaban light horse, sprawled across the slopes of the hill below, overlooking the sweeping harbor of Tyre.

Khalid spat into the darkness, frowning out at the battlements of the island city. His small army had made a swift advance up the Phoenician coast, seizing many towns. In some places he had been welcomed as a liberator, in others merely not resisted. This place was different. The ancient city was built on an island, connected to the mainland by a massive mole faced with granite blocks. Below the hill, a warehouse district spread along the shoreline, fronting two harbors formed by the mole itself and barrier islands offshore. A stout wall protected the warehouses, but a swift assault had carried its gates. It was the island itself that defied him. The last sixty feet of the mole had been built as a bridge, which the Roman defenders had collapsed when the Arabs reached the harbor. Khalid lacked a fleet and the docks had been carefully emptied of shipping.

Khalid smiled, thin features half lit by firelight. "Well, Patik, what do you think? Should we leave these wolf cubs mewed up in their stone den?"

The stolid Persian did not answer, remaining a quiet, comforting shape in the darkness beyond the glow of the coals. The mercenary was sitting with his back to the fire, horse bow on his knees, watching the night. The young Arab tossed another twig into the embers.

"A troop of horsemen could be left, I suppose... they could watch the island-city and keep the Romans penned within. Hmm." He tapped his narrow chin with another twig. "But if Mohammed and the beautiful Zoë cannot hunt down and destroy their fleet, then each of these ports will be a spear point against our belly."

The Arab wished the "great leader" had allowed him to move the infantry and siege equipment north from Caesarea. However, Mohammed had been strict about the operations allowed in his absence. Jalal, Uri and Odenathus were away in the south, securing the road to Egypt. Shadin held the great port itself and was responsible for mustering even more men from the towns and villages newly fallen to the Arabs. All Khalid had been allowed was a moderate force of swift-moving lancers and bowmen. Enough to scout for any Roman armies loose in the north, but not enough to assay the capture of a strong fortress like Tyre. "Perhaps, if we built some rafts, we could slip up to the seawall under cover of—"

"Someone is coming." The Persian's voice rumbled like stone sliding downhill.

Patik moved in the darkness and Khalid sensed a bowstring being drawn back. The Arab stood gracefully, right hand sliding under his cloak and around the hilt of a straight-bladed cavalry sword. Looking away from the fire, Khalid listened. After a moment, he heard stones rattle on the slope and then branches in the laurel trees rustling. Only a single man seemed to be approaching. Khalid turned, his boot brushing a tied bundle of grass into the embers. They sparked, sending up little yellow jets of flame, then burst alight.

A figure was standing at the edge of the firelight. It was tall and broad-shouldered, clad in a long dark cloak with a deep hood. Red glimmered on its chest, reflecting back from close-fitting scaled armor. Its boots crunched on the broken
tesserae
covering the floor of the temple. Khalid could not see the face. He felt the air grow chill and he tensed to draw his blade.

"Salaam," it whispered in a faint cold voice. "You are Khalid al'Walid."

Khalid steeled himself, disturbed to glimpse Patik lowering his bow.

"I am," he answered, shrugging the cloak from his right shoulder. "Who are you?"

"A messenger."

"What is your message?" Khalid moved to put the dying fire between himself and the figure. "Who sent you?"

A sound came from the shape, something like laughter, but from a throat unused to such sounds. A dry hiss rattling amongst the bones of the dead.

"You know my master," it said, remaining at the edge of the temple. "He knows you."

Khalid felt the cold in the air steal over him. It became hard to breathe. Patik remained motionless at his side. The young man remembered a day under a burning white sky.

Towers of brick and carved stone rose from a barren plain. The wreckage of two of the towers lay scattered about. Something had smashed them down, pulverizing the rock and marble statuary that had adorned them. Khalid crawled amongst the stones, shaking with fear. Smoke and fumes rose from the blasted soil, which hissed and steamed in agony. Only moments before the sky had rippled and fractured like bad glass drawn from the forge. He alone, of all the men in the army cowering in the hills, had dared to come down onto the dusty plain before the city.

Trails of white smoke curled up from a ravine cracked open in the parched earth. Something dark had fallen there. Khalid had seen it. Now he crept to the edge of the crevice and looked within. There was something there in the shape of a man, curled up, skin blackened by titanic forces. Once it had worn a robe; now that was burned away. Once bracelets of gold and platinum had adorned thin wrists; now they were puddled droplets on the sandy ground. A reek rose up from the ravine like the smell of a charnel house. Khalid wrapped the end of his
kaffiyeh
around his face, then slid down into the crevice.

More cloths over leather gloves protected his hands, which was wise, for the ebon skin of the shape burned like fire. Khalid rolled the figure over, then felt his mind go cold as he looked upon the face of the sorcerer. Slitted yellow eyes burned into his, making the world grow dim and faint.

"I remember," Khalid grated, his voice distant. "What is your message?"

"This," hissed the thing wearing the shape of a man: "the army of the Great King has seized Antioch in the north. Soon, he will come south. He comes in friendship and with open arms for all those who defy Rome. It would not be wise to resist him, for he is your friend."

Khalid felt a shock like a blow to the face. He steadied himself, thinking of Patik's strong arm at his side. Even this thing might find it hard to overcome both of them. Still, he hesitated, remembering the power of the sorcerer. It was not wise to defy such powers. Not for a young man without any clan or tribe save that of a madman. Perhaps not even then. "How has this happened? Antioch is a strong city."

The shape laughed again, the same rattle of dry bones. "Many strong places have fallen to the King of Kings. That city is only the least. You would do well to greet the Great King in honor, bowing before him, for he is Lord of the World."

Khalid mustered his thoughts, though they spun and whirled like leaves in the
khamsin
. "When will he be here, this King of Kings? Does he come to make war upon Rome?"

The figure turned, heavy boots scraping on the ground. At the very edge of the dying firelight, it looked over its shoulder and Khalid thought he saw two points of pale fire burning in the shadows under the hood.

"The Great King is already at war with Rome," it hissed. "This Lord Mohammed has done him great service and he will not forget."

Khalid sneered, but the thing was already gone. The Arab groped amongst the stones, casting more kindling onto the fire. Soon, an aromatic smoke rose up from bright flames.

"What was that?" Khalid looked up at Patik. The Persian remained standing, his bow half drawn, looking out into the darkness. At last, he turned, his grim face still. Though Khalid felt chilled and uneasy, it seemed that the mercenary was unmoved by their night visitor.

"It is gone."

"What
was
that?" The Arab's voice rose a little.

"A messenger."

Despite Khalid's insistence, the Persian said no more while the night lingered.

The next day was blustery but not cold. Full summer was upon the coast of Phoenicia, and the sun was hot in the olive groves and the vineyards. Khalid remained in the temple on the hilltop, watching white-sailed boats coming and going from the island fortress. They seemed insolent, mocking his siege with their flitting about on the pure blue water. His companions accounted him a devious man, but he could see no good way into the city.

"Many strong places have fallen to treachery," he mused, liquid brown eyes roaming over the outline of towers and gates and steep walls of limestone slabs. "I wonder if there are ulcers I might stir to life?"

Horns sounded on the plain behind the hill. Khalid did not turn to look, comfortable in the wariness of his scouts and pickets scattered through the olive groves and farmsteads radiating out into the coastal plain around the city. The Romans built well, with hard-surfaced roads and fine bridges all through this country. It was rich here on the gently sloping plain edging the sea. He wondered if all of Rome was so flush with fields and orchards and flocks of fat-tailed sheep and longhaired goats. There were even cows here, thick with heavy, fat meat. And there were so many of them! Even the nominal population of the warehouse district along the harbors far exceeded the citizens of Mekkah in the far south.

The young man frowned, knowing from his brief travels in Persian lands that Tyre did not even approach the size of such cities as Damascus or Antioch, much less a metropolis like Constantinople or Ctesiphon.

What does our brave leader intend? He has seen these lands, too. He must know that Rome is beyond our power to throw down. Why this mad plunge into the heart of the enemy?

Mohammed claimed he was guided by the voice from the clear air. Refusing to believe this had become part of Khalid's view of the world. Even the miracles he had seen performed did not sway his belief. Mohammed was a man who had found power within himself to do these things. There was no
god
that spoke to him. The gods were long dead.

A dim murmur rose up from the camp at the bottom of the hill. Khalid turned and walked to the edge of the temple. A troop of brightly caparisoned riders entered the camp down among the hedgerows and rosebushes. Even from this height he could make out the embroidered saddle cloths on the horses and the red and gold shields of the riders. Fifty or sixty armored men rode in from the countryside, escorted by Arab scouts. Their bows and lances were stowed on their horses and a trail of pack mules followed, heavily laden with rolls of armor and barding.
A scouting party, then.

The young general sat in the shade of the laurel trees and waited, thinking while the Persian commander labored up the hill. Khalid's agile mind worried at the problems inherent in this struggle against the Empire.
How does Mohammed hope to win?
he wondered.
Does he intend to win?
A thought occurred to him and he turned suddenly, looking for Patik. The Persian was standing nearby, his bronze single-piece helmet resting at his scale-armor-covered hip. Khalid took in the man's rugged features, the classic Persian nose, the thick arms. He wondered, then, what the mercenary thought of all this. "Patik, why did you join me?"

The Persian looked down, flinty eyes expressionless. "You were going the way I was going."

Khalid raised an eyebrow. The mercenary's presence was comforting but unexplained. "Did you have to flee Persia? Are you an outlaw?"

"Does it matter?" Patik's thin lips quirked into something like a smile, but the expression was as forbidding as a scowl. "Would you send me away if I was?"

Khalid laughed, surprised to get so many words from the stoic mercenary. He rarely spoke. When he did, a cultured baritone was revealed. "No," he said, "but I wonder—if we must fight the Persians, whose side will you choose?"

"We will not fight them. You will see."

The surety in the man's voice took Khalid aback. Voices from the trail down to the camp distracted him before he could respond. The head of a man appeared among the bushes and then a stout fellow of medium height stomped into the circle of broken pillars. Like the riders Khalid had seen entering the camp, he was clad in lamellar armor of small metal lozenges, covering him from shoulder to mid-thigh. The armored man stopped within the circle and bent, pulling off his heavy helmet. "Salaam, Khalid, son of Walid, chief of the Makzhum."

The young Arab stepped back in surprise. He knew this man, though he had never expected to see him again. "Salaam, Lord Khadames! By the prophet, General, I did not think to see you here!"

Khadames grinned, his round face beaming behind a neatly trimmed gray beard. Khalid was surprised to see the Persian had grown markedly older in the last two years. His noble face was lined with wrinkles and he seemed to carry a heavy burden. His hair was streaked with white and gray. Despite this, he smiled genially, nodding absently to Patik, and sat down on one of the broken columns. "You've come up in the world, lad. That's a hardy troop of men you've down below—and I hear you and your friends have tasted sweet victory over Rome."

"We have," Khalid said cautiously, sitting himself. Patik had disappeared into the brush, leaving the two of them alone. "An... ominous... messenger came last night, bringing word that you were coming. That one said the Great King rides to war on Rome again. Is this true?"

The shadow in Khadames' face returned, but the old general turned his face to the noonday sun and sighed, visibly drawing strength from the gentle warmth. "It is true. The Great King's army captured Antioch. Our... allies have seized the Cilician Gates from the Roman garrison, opening the passes. The Great King stands poised to strike into Anatolia once more."

"A stunning victory." Khalid's eyes narrowed and he watched the Persian closely.

"We have your master to thank for that," Khadames said, managing a smile. "Did you know that the Great Prince Theodore stripped the entire Eastern frontier to muster the army you defeated at Yarmuk? The garrisons in Mesopotamia, at Antioch, in Armenia, were all drawn down to fuel his campaign against the desert cities." Khadames shook his head in amusement, scuffing at the broken
tesserae
with the tip of his boot.