The Storm of Heaven (18 page)

Yawning a little, he leaned against a battlement. Like the rest of the city, the citadel was built of quarried limestone blocks fitted with cement. It made everything a yellowish-white color, matching the mountains and valleys. From a distance, if the sun did not strike on the gilded roofs of the Temple of Jupiter on the other hill, it could be hard to distinguish the city from the hill. The local tribesmen tended to wear pale white, tan and cream robes, too, which made
them
match the ground. It always seemed dusty, even when it was not.

Dwyrin stared off to the east, worrying. Two years ago, when he had been sent by the school to satisfy the Imperial levy, he had been drafted into a thaumaturgic
manus
, or "five," with three other youths. During the war with Persia, Eric had died, drowning in frigid waters before the gate of a besieged city. Last year the other two, Zoë and Odenathus, had left Imperial service after they had learned that the Eastern Emperor had betrayed their home city, Palmyra. That rich and glorious city had been destroyed. Dwyrin had parted from them amid bitter anger and hatred. He had stayed with the Legions, while they had vanished into the desert.

Sometimes couriers came to the city bringing news from other Roman outposts. When they did, Dwyrin stayed close to Nicholas' office, hoping that he might hear some rumor or news of his friends. He hoped that they had not been killed or captured by slavers. The provinces across the Jordan River, to the east, had risen up in revolt. War engulfed the whole region.

Dwyrin straightened suddenly, disturbed from his thoughts by the wink of sunlight on metal. There, on the height of the mountain that rose on the eastern side of the city, something was shining. He squinted, trying to make it out, then laughed aloud. He had learned more than a few tricks while training in the Legion.

Time to earn my pay,
he thought as he raised his hands.

Entering the hidden world was easy now; hardly a moment's concentration and thought was required to see the solid surfaces and forms of the world of physicality melt away. He turned aside from the abyss of full sight, letting his mind discern the patterns of the city and the hills amid the fury and chaos of the true world. A sorcerer could lose himself in the vast depths that opened before him. Some apprentices entered the hidden world and never returned, their bodies withering as the mind failed and the heart ceased. There were depths in the sky that did not bear investigation.

The Hibernian turned his attention to the swiftest of the motes that flooded the space around him, letting his thoughts bring into focus the tiny photons that made up the wash of light that fell over him, warming his face and lighting the stones. It was difficult, for the training he had received told him to ignore the minute, flickering ether that filled the sky. But now he needed to gather them, folding them towards his eyes, letting a transparent disk form before him. His raised hands marked its edge, letting the disk de-form and flex, making a convex surface.

Turning towards the distant hill, he let the disk expand and capture the photons that had reflected from the shining metal there and touched his eye. They flooded against his face, making it slightly warmer. Dwyrin, trying not to squint, let his mind restore regular vision and sight.

The far hilltop sprang into view, seemingly as through he stood only yards away, floating in the air, looking up at the men clustered there amid the olive trees. One of them turned, his head coming up, dark eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"Ay!" Dwyrin jumped back and the invisible disk spun out of control and fragmented, scattering light across the white stones of the tower roof. The Hibernian youth was sweating, his face hot and burning. He blinked furiously, almost blinded.

Despite this, he staggered towards the top of the stairs, letting his hands find the way along the battlement.

Nicholas, armored arms crossed over his heavy scale breastplate, squinted at the Armenian.

"You don't have a problem, then, serving under my banner?"

The Armenian, a long-mustached rascal named Nezam, grinned and made a weighing motion with his right hand. Nicholas nodded, not surprised. As long as the highland mercenaries that Nezam commanded were paid, in coin of a full weight, they would be loyal. Luckily for Nicholas, who had not come with any great store of gold, the lock rooms under the citadel held part of the tax revenue that the governor had been collecting. A troop of stonemasons from the engineers' cohort was guarding them right now, with Vladimir along as insurance.

"I no care who sits in praetor's chair," said the Armenian, his musical accent making the Greek sing. "We will fight or watch, no matter to us."

"Good," said Nicholas in his equally poor Greek. "Divide your men into groups of five. They will go with the engineers to secure the town and the gates."

Turning to the other two men in the room, Nicholas raised an eyebrow.

"Sextus, Frontius—see that your men and these barbarians are at each gate in the city. No one comes in or goes out until I've talked with the city senate and the other ne'er-do-wells that thrive in this place."

The lead surveyor and the master draftsman nodded. Each looked a little uncomfortable in their armor, but it was clean and it fit. Their role in the Legions might not be to fight on the front line, shields interlocked, but they were Roman soldiers. Nicholas sighed to himself, wishing he had the cohort of Eastern veterans he had been promised when he arrived in Judea.

But that is bootless,
he reminded himself. The troops he had expected had gone off on some bandit-chasing expedition in the north, leaving him with a stranded Western Empire siege and road-building cohort. At least they had tools and equipment and some idea of what to do with a sword. The late governor, who had fallen down a flight of stairs when Nicholas and Vladimir had dragged him out of a rubbish shaft for questioning, had not done much with the local militia or the city garrison. Most of those billets were empty, the presumed soldiers having been cashiered out or died. Of course, the records of the garrison still showed them on the rolls. It was an old trick.

The problem was, Nicholas needed those men even to police the city, much less hold four miles of double-ramparted wall against whatever army had thrashed Prince Theodore and eight legions of Eastern troops. Which led him back here, to this cramped office in the citadel, where he was buying off the five hundred Armenians that the late, lamented governor had imported for his own protection. There was no doubt that the Armenians could fight—they were professionals—but what if the gold ran out, what then?

"Sir, what about our survey?" Neither Frontius nor Sextus had left the room.

Nicholas took a deep breath and put his hands on the tabletop. "The survey... will have to wait until the city is secured."

Neither man moved, staring at Nicholas with sad eyes. Frontius, with his permanent squint, looked particularly disturbing.

Gods! They're worse than a pair of Locrian hounds!

When Nicholas and his troops had entered the city, there had been an argument between Sextus and the local magistrate about the aqueducts. The Western officer, long accustomed to the massive public works of Rome, had held forth over a flagon of weak wheat beer that the Judean provinces were sorely lacking in proper waterworks. The magistrate, an Illyrian émigré who had lived in Aelia Capitolina for thirty years, disagreed with some heated words. Luckily, the dispute had not been resolved by fisticuffs but rather by a trip into the basement of the tavern.

There in the ancient stone floor was a round stone lid with a heavy iron ring. With the help of those engineers that could still stand up, a great deal of rope and a pulley, Sextus was suspended head-first over the hole and then, with a racket of shouted commands and laughter, lowered into the mysterious chamber. Nicholas had been watching from the top of the stairs, trying to keep his hair from catching fire in the lantern. A grain passed, then another, then there was some more shouting and the engineer was pulled up, choking and coughing from the smoke of the lantern he had in his hand.

"It's incredible!" The engineer had that look, like a boy really seeing a girl for the first time. He was dripping water and looking like a half-drowned rat but he was smiling. "It's enormous!"

Apparently the tavern stood atop a vast underground cistern. The ancient builders of the city, plagued by war and raids from neighboring tribes, had built their water system underground. The hilltop was riddled with caverns and tunnels and buried springs. The soft limestone was easy to cut, allowing the stonemasons of old to quarry out great vaulted chambers and pools. This discovery had transported Frontius and Sextus into a veritable frenzy of excitement. With them, bound in a waxed leather cover, was a thick book of parchment. It was a matter of cohort pride that they possessed a copy of Vitruvius'
De Architectura
. It rode in one of the special wagons in a locked iron box.

Like their ancient idol, the two engineers were working on a survey of all modern waterworks, siegecraft, buildings and construction materials. The thought of adding the expertise of the ancient Judeans—consolidated and revised, of course, by these two stalwarts—quite distracted them from the tasks that Nicholas had set them.

The centurion had then suffered at length as the engineers had pressed him to let them conduct a full survey of everything in the city, above and below ground. Nicholas had refused, and was still refusing. The gates, the walls, the ramparts—everything was in disrepair after years of neglect. He had work teams supplemented with local workers out from sunrise to sunset, shoring up walls, repairing gates, clearing the old ditch that ran along the exposed northern wall. Nicholas guessed that perhaps only half of the work that needed to be done to restore the defenses of the city was done.

"But, sir! We could do it on off hours."

Nicholas raised his hand sharply and was about to bark some severe words when there was a rattling of boots in the corridor outside.

Dwyrin was at the door, panting, his face sunburned. "They're here!"

"Who?" snapped Nicholas, but he could guess as well as the two engineers.

"The Arabs—I just saw their advance party on the mountain to the east."

Sextus and Frontius were gone, their armor banging off the jamb of the door. Nezam, having stood well aside while the two Romans dashed out, followed more sedately, hand on the pommel of his sword. Nicholas was about to follow them when he caught the look on the boy's face. He pulled up hard and caught Dwyrin's eye.

"What is it?"

"Nothing, sir—"

Nicholas grimaced and seized the young sorcerer by the throat, jamming him up against the wall. Breath
oof
ed out of Dwyrin's lungs and his eyes bulged.

"I've no time to dally about," snarled Nicholas, his face close to Dwyrin's. "Tell me what you saw."

He released his fist and the Hibernian slumped down, gasping for breath. While he recovered, Nicholas' face, which had grown quite grim, softened a little.

"Sorry, lad," he said, setting the boy upright. "Everything counts now, though."

Dwyrin nodded, his face red with shame. Withholding information from your commanding officer in time of war was an offense punishable by running the gauntlet. The Hibernian had seen men dragged from the end of that corridor of fists and staves, their faces ruined masses of blood and broken bone. The Legion had great hopes that all of its soldiers would live to reach their twenty-six-year retirement and collect the
honesta misso
. Nothing in that hope kept the Legion officers from enforcing a brutal and strict discipline on their troops.

"I saw a man with the scouts on the mountain; I know him. He was my five-mate in the Persian campaign. His name is Odenathus, a Palmyrene noble. He and his cousin Zoë left us at Antioch, when the
auxillia
mustered out."

Nicholas' eyes narrowed. The boy had told him a little of what had happened in Antioch when his comrades had taken their discharge from the Legion. "A sorcerer? Like you? How strong is he?"

Dwyrin started to speak, then stopped. A pensive, thoughtful look came over him. The thought of who in the
manus
was better or worse had seemed very simple when they were fighting as one. Dwyrin was the youngest and the least experienced, therefore Odenathus must be far stronger than he. But was that still true? Dwyrin had grown in the past months, freed from the strictures of having to fight in the battle-meld with the two others. He lacked many skills, but this was a siege. His fire-calling talent, which now hovered ever-eager for release, might be the difference between victory and death.

"He's not like me, centurion. He made a solid second for our
manus
and he's good at deception and defense, but he can't call fire or lightning well. I can master him if we come to blows... I think."

The Scandian nodded, his mind turning the situation over, viewing it from more than one angle. There was something disturbing here, but what was it? Ah.

"Take yourself to the northern wall, lad. Find cover near the main gate, but don't show yourself. These fellows may be rash and try and rush us. If they do, I want you to surprise them."

Dwyrin nodded, still rubbing his throat, and jogged off. Nicholas, alone in the governor's office, brooded.

The Palmyrenes are with these bandits. Theirs was a rich city, with many ships and warehouses and great trade. Their agents and factors were in every city on the Levantine coast, even here. This is no rabble that comes against us...

Then he laughed, bits and pieces of rumor and fragmentary news falling into place. It was not a laugh of pleasure or joy, but rather of the knowledgeable man who sees what others have not.

Prince Theodore had been soundly defeated in the north, on the Syrian heights, on the road between the port of Caesarea Maritima and Damascus. Such success at arms had not been achieved by rabble. It was well known from merchants and travelers fleeing along the roads from the east that the Greek cities of the Decapolis—Bostra, Jerash and so on—had risen in revolt. Now the Palmyrenes and these Arab bandits were involved. A rebel army was here, well south of the line between Damascus and the port. This was no longer a provincial dispute over taxes. This was a war between the Empire and a new pan-Levantine state.