Men of Bronze (38 page)

The sounds of fighting — the screams of rage and agony, the crash and slither of iron on bronze, the moist impact of iron on flesh — echoed beyond the wall of the ruin. She tried not to think of the Egyptian soldiers out there as young men, tried not to recall their laughter, their voices. Soon, they would come broken and bleeding into her care. Some would die; others would pray for death.

Jauharah rounded the corner and skidded to a halt. Flames erupted from the hospital tents. Men clashed together, heaving this way and that in an obscene dance that would end with a life extinguished. As she watched, Bay, kindly, meticulous Bay, hurled himself on a Bedouin’s back, a surgeon’s knife flashing in the firelight. The raider fell, his throat slit. Another stepped in and rammed his spear into Bay’s chest. Jauharah screamed as the quartermaster was lifted off his feet and slammed to the ground, gurgling through the blood filling his lungs as the Bedouin cruelly twisted the spear.

At the sound of her voice, a woman’s voice, the Bedouin turned. Malice glittered in their dark eyes. Malice and lust. Dread clutched Jauharah’s heart with talons of ice.

Suddenly, she doubted the wisdom of leaving Barca’s shadow. Jauharah backed away, then turned and disappeared into the ruins. Like hounds, the Bedouin bayed and gave chase. They had taken only a handful of steps when a squad of Egyptians fell on their flank. The woman was forgotten as spear, knife and sword licked out, driving them back into the crackling flames.

Jauharah slowed, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She pulled herself over the low wall and stopped. No one followed her. Tears blurred her vision. She turned …

… and screamed as a raider blind-sided her, lunging from the darkness like a desert spirit. He caught her like a man does a child, his arms wrapping around her, pinning her to his chest. “Come, my sweet lotus flower!” he whispered in her ear, his breath foul.

Jauharah’s shrieks had an altogether different quality as she struggled against the Bedouin, her lithe strength brought to nothing by bands of iron muscle. He chuckled darkly and hurled her to the ground. Jauharah hit hard, her breath whistling from her lungs. Somehow, she kept hold of her knife.

Light from the distant fires seeped in through chinks in the crumbling walls, striping the darkness with slashes of orange. “Qainu said kill you all,” the raider said, grinning. “But he said nothing against taking our sport first! “ He drove his sword point-first into the ground and hiked up his robe, tucking the hem into his sword belt. Leering, the Bedouin stalked her, his ugly, goatish body naked from the waist down. Jauharah smelled the reek of smoke and sweat, the stench of horses permeating the Bedouin’s frame. She pulled herself to her knees and staggered to her feet.

“Q-Qainu?” she said.

But the Bedouin offered her nothing more, save a cruel bark of laughter as he threw himself at her. Grimy hands pawed at her breasts, tearing her shift from her shoulders. In that instant, Jauharah remembered the knife in her fist. Snarling, she drove it forward with all the strength in her arm.

Flesh parted under the keen blade. The Bedouin’s howls changed pitch and timbre as her knife slashed up through his groin, emasculating him before continuing deep into the juncture of his inner thigh. He sank to the ground, clutching himself, gobbling at the blood spurting from his lacerated femoral artery. He pushed himself away from her and crawled to where his sword lay.

Jauharah’s world shrank to a pinpoint, a speck dominated by the writhing body at her feet. Her mind’s eye no longer saw a Bedouin, but a Greek, an assassin, covered in the blood of children. He tried to rise. “No!” she snarled, throwing herself on his back. Her knife flashed again and again. She had to save them! She …

When Jauharah looked down the Greek was gone. Instead, she straddled the Bedouin’s twisted corpse. The blood-slick hilt of her knife protruded from the shredded flesh of his shoulders. She held her trembling hands up. They were covered in blood, as well. Jauharah spun away, vomiting.

“Egyptian women are soft!” A figure sat atop the low wall. He dropped to the ground. His silhouette gave Jauharah the impression of a bird of prey; his ripped robes and blood-blasted turban left no doubt that he was Bedouin. He walked closer and leveled a gory scimitar at her breast.

“Salim was a fool,” he said, “but I’ll not make the same mistake. Touch that knife and I’ll split you in two, girl!”

Fear hammered through her brain as she sought a way out, some kind of edge over the lean desert fighter. The other Bedouin, Salim, had been blinded by lust; this one was different. This one had lusts no woman could slake. She pushed herself away from him, passing through a shaft of light.

“You are an Arab!” he said, grunting in surprise. “Are you Barca’s whore?”

Jauharah spat. “I’m no whore, you cursed Asiatic swineherd!”

The Bedouin chuckled. “You have learned impertinence in the cities of Egypt. That is good. Taming you will provide me with a challenge. Remember my name, woman, for you will be Zayid’s whore after I have killed the Phoenician dog.”

“You’re not man enough to kill Barca!” Jauharah said, with far more bravado than she felt. “If you were a man, you’d be out there dying with your kin instead of cowering in the darkness with a woman!”

Zayid’s jaw clenched and there was a dangerous glitter to his dark eyes. “Do I have to show you how much of a man I am?”

“Don’t show her. Show me.” Barca stepped from the shadows and leaned against a shattered column, his sword held loosely at his side. Zayid spun and backed away as Barca stood erect and walked toward him.

“Gods! How I have waited for this moment!” Zayid said. “The great al-Saffah! Did you think you could spill the blood of my brothers and escape unscathed?”

“You’ve overestimated your ability. It seems to be a common failing among you Bedouin. Make your peace with the gods, sand-fucker!”

“I may die, but I’ll send you to Hell before me!” Zayid surged forward, his blade whistling in a tight arc about his head. A blood lust gripped him that made him ignore any thought of defense. He loosed an eerie undulating howl.

Jauharah saw them crash together. She caught the flash of blades, heard the slaughterhouse sound of iron cleaving flesh. She blinked, and in that brief span, Barca’s sword slammed into Zayid’s chest, left of the sternum, shattering bone and splitting the muscles of his heart. The Phoenician held Zayid on the end of his sword as the Bedouin clawed feebly at the blade.

“Not a man, after all!” Barca growled, and kicked him away. Zayid was dead and forgotten before he hit the ground.

Barca rushed to Jauharah’s side. “Are you hurt?” He tried helping her stand, but she threw her arms around his neck, instead. Her body trembled; he did not trust her legs to hold her. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head. For a long time Jauharah held him tight, her head buried in his shoulder as sobs wracked her already weakened form. He stroked her hair. “H-He was g-going to rape m-me. I …”

“You did what you had to.”

She looked up, the anguish in her eyes like a knife to his soul. “I’m going mad! B-Before I killed him I thought he w-was one of the Greeks w-who …”

Barca held her close and said nothing. He could have told her a similar tale, about the face he saw when in the grips of
katalepsis;
he could have told her that every man he had slain bore an uncanny resemblance to himself. But, she needed to believe it would pass, that Time would lessen the pain. Only then would her heart start down the slow path of healing.

A path she shouldn’t travel alone.

Outside the ruin, the sounds of fighting died away. Jauharah stirred. “I heard him say Qainu ordered them to kill us.”

“I know.”

“What do we do?” Jauharah asked. She did not know what was more disconcerting: Barca’s silence or the look in his eye as he stared at Zayid’s corpse.

Callisthenes crept to the door of the throne room, listening.

“Why are you badgering me about this Greek?” Qainu was saying. “What matter is it of yours what I plan to do with him?”

“It is wrong, what you plan!” a voice answered. Merodach. “He came to us in good faith and we repay his candor by clapping him in chains! Have we become like the wretched Bedouin? Men who possess not a shred of honor?”

“Guard your tongue, Merodach,” Qainu said, his voice a dangerous hiss. “The future of Arabia lay with the Bedouin. Had you sense, you’d see it too.”

“All I see is a weak fool dancing on the end of a string … a string held by the Persians!” Merodach said.

Callisthenes inched forward. Silently, on well-kept hinges, the door opened on a small alcove that widened out into the throne room proper, with its forest of columns. The place was dark; the only source of light a trio of bronze lamps burning about the throne. The Greek saw no evidence of guards, for which he breathed a prayer of thanks, as he crept along the wall.

Suddenly, Callisthenes stopped. Qainu’s tiger, chained to the king’s throne, glared at him and coughed. The big cat’s eyes glowed a sorcerous green in the dim light.

“What has happened to you, Merodach? You were once my staunchest ally. Now, you sound like your predecessor, a sniveling toad who lacked a spine. Have these Egyptians cast some sort of spell over you? Do you hunger for my throne?” The Arabian king looked thunderstruck. “That’s it! You’ve made some unholy alliance with the Egyptians!”

“Don’t be absurd!” Merodach said. The chancellor paced back and forth, the movement catching the tiger’s eye. “It pains me to see these Persians using you as a pawn in their political games. Cambyses doubtless has never heard of you, majesty. Not with a glory-hound like Phanes at his side. You are nothing to this man whose attention you crave. A puppet! ”

“Rather a puppet than a corpse!” Qainu said. He leaned down and loosed the tiger’s collar. With an ear-splitting roar the beast launched itself off the dais, clearing the intervening space in a single lithe bound to crash full onto Merodach’s chest. The pair fell in a welter of thrashing limbs. A chilling shriek echoed about the throne room as the tiger’s powerful claws disemboweled the chancellor.

Qainu’s laughter amid the cracking of bone roused the Greek from his shocked silence. An unfathomable rage clutched him. A rage that could only be sated with blood.

“No!” Callisthenes screamed. He sprinted out into the open.

The sight of the blood-splashed Greek hefting a spear sent a paroxysm of fear through Qainu. The Arabian king recoiled, curling up into a ball on his throne as he awaited the cold hand of death.

The tiger glared at the Greek from above the gory mess that was Merodach, ears flattening against its skull. The spear cocked behind Callisthenes’ ear flew straight and true, a cast worthy of Hector. The long bronze blade flashed through the dim light of the throne room and smashed into the tiger’s side. The god of war must have blessed that cast, for the spear knocked the beast sidewise off Merodach, splitting its heart in two. Without breaking stride, the Greek ripped his knife from his girdle and leapt at the king.

“Guards! “ Qainu hurled himself off the throne and tried to run. Years of sloth, of debauchery, had taken their toll on the fleshy Arabian. Callisthenes caught him easily by the scruff of the neck and hurled him back against the dais. “Guards!” the king squealed. In a rage, the Greek struck Qainu across the mouth, his fist stiffened by the hilt of his knife. The Arab fell back, stunned. Callisthenes gave him not a moment’s respite. Again and again he pommel-whipped the king, his face a mask of fury. Barely did he hear his name being called.

“C-Callis … C-Callisthenes!”

The Greek looked up. Amazingly, Merodach yet clung to life. With great effort the chancellor extended a hand toward Callisthenes. The Greek let go of the king and rushed to Merodach’s side.

“I am sorry, my friend. I brought this on you.” He stroked the Babylonian’s forehead. The tiger’s claws had shredded his abdomen, exposing intestine and bone. A lake of crimson formed around the fallen man. “I am so sorry.”

“P-Please …” Merodach whispered, bubbles of blood breaking on his trembling lips. “Do n-not kill h-him …” His eyes rolled toward the dais, toward the bruised and bleeding form of his king. “P-Promise … m-me …”

“I promise, Merodach,” Callisthenes said quietly. “I will not kill him.” Merodach gripped the Greek’s arm, then gave a last, wet, shuddering sigh. Tears rolled down Callisthenes’ cheeks. This man, a stranger to him, had shown more grace and honor in dying than any man the Greek had ever known. Far more grace than the wretched dog he served.

Callisthenes glanced up, hatred in his eyes. His hand gripped the hilt of his knife.

Qainu’s scream echoed about the throne room.