The Storm of Heaven (8 page)

Theodore and his bodyguards reached the standards of the tribune commanding the left wing of the Roman force as the sky began to darken. The Lord Prince was hurrying the man through the usual pleasantries, trying to find out where Vahan had gone, when Boleslav suddenly shouted in fear. Theodore's head snapped up in alarm; he had never heard such a cry from one of the Faithful.

The eastern half of the sky was gone, swallowed into a towering wall of darkness. The sky above turned a sickly yellow, boiling and seething with angry motion. Sodium-yellow lightning rippled through the depths of the black cloud, illuminating a rushing storm front from within. For an instant, the Lord Prince was aware that a terrible silence had settled on the field of battle. Men all around him looked up in awe and terror, seeing only the outline of the outcropping and a single white figure that stood on the summit, hands raised. There was no wind, no sound, not even the rattle of metal on stone.

"All-father, receive our souls on bright wings."

The Faithful broke the silence with their song, raised in a hundred basso throats. Theodore stared around wildly, seeing that the Northmen had raised their axes in defiance to the dreadful sky rushing towards them.

"All-father, hear us, send your winged messengers to bind our wounds, to lift us up from the field of battle. Valhalla is waiting, the golden hall on a green hill. All-father, hear us!"

Then the song was drowned by the awesome roar of the wind and the world vanished in a howling storm of blinding sand and grit and Theodore's horse bucked in fear and he was falling.

Zoë cowered in the lee of a slab of cracked blackish rock. Odenathus crowded in beside her, his cloak stretched over both of them. The sky screamed and raged and she could hear, somehow, through the tumult the sound of Mohammed's voice tolling like a temple bell. Sand lashed at their shelter, spilling through the cracks between the stone and the cloak. The fabric was stretched taut by the pressure of the wind. Her cousin moaned in fear, feeling the power that was unleashed in the sky above them.

I knew he was strong,
Zoë wailed to herself, palms pressed over her ears, trying to shut out the hammering noise. It was useless; the roaring sound was in the ground as well as the sky. It filled the hidden world.
I didn't know what that meant!

The earth shook under her and she screamed in fear.

Mohammed stood on the boulder, staring down into the valley. The wind died around him, leaving a quiet space in the maelstrom. Not more than a dozen yards away, the storm raged, tearing out brush by its roots, whirling away tents and wagons. Eddies of dust and sand and grit curled around an invisible sphere, rushing past like the current of a river. Here, where he stood, listening to the sky, there was only a quiet whisper of movement in the air. Tiny grains of sand pattered down where the storm met the quiet, making little cones on the ground.

You must act, O man, but I will guide you.

A voice was speaking from the clear air, here in the heart of the storm. Outside, beyond this sanctuary, the wind ripped and howled, shifting the stones of the hill in their foundations. Darkness covered more than the sky now as the sandstorm flowed across the desert, cracking trees and lashing men as they lay huddled on the ground.

Some men still moved in the storm. Khalid and his riders were galloping down the road towards the bridge across the Wadi Ruqqad. Mohammed could see them, in the queer yellow-green light filling the quiet sphere. He knew that they would reach the span and seize it from the Romans, stunned by the storm. On the slope below him, where the men of the Decapolis had watered the ground with their blood throughout the long day, his followers could stand in the wind. The Roman army had already splintered, in fear and surprise, and Shadin and Jalal were meeting amid the carnage, their faces striped with blood.

You must strike to the sea. Swiftly. Swiftly.

Mohammed nodded. The voice from the clear air rarely gave him counsel, but in this thing he was already determined. He fingered a medallion hanging around his neck. It had come to him by a messenger's hand, while he and his men had been encamped at the old Nabatean capital of Petra. It was from his wife's sister. It was an old coin, struck in the mint of Mekkah in his father's time. On the obverse was stamped the image of a ship.

Mohammed stared out, into the storm, at the ruin below him. Across the valley, between curtains of hurtling dust, he could see lightning stabbing in the murk. The Quraysh shook his head slowly, feeling the ripple of power even at this distance. The Roman thaumaturges could feel the will in the storm and sought to meet it with their own.

Foolish.

Mohammed knew the strength of the Lord of the Empty Places, of the Wasteland. Was it not the strength of the whole world itself? Of all that existed, or had ever existed?

How can men seek to overturn that?

The lightning faded and died, muted and swallowed by the roiling yellow-brown sky. Intermittent red and viridian flashes continued for a little while, but then they too ceased.

The Quraysh turned away, pulling a scarf over his face. This work was done.

Wind shrieked and hissed, lashing Colonna with a stinging hail of sand and gravel. Bits of wood, splintered from the leaning trees, flew through the air like tiny javelins. The centurion was crouched in the lee of a wagon, close by the bridge abutment. Some of his men had climbed down the steep sides of the ravine, seeking shelter from the storm.

What a fine day,
the centurion thought, head bent to his knees, hiding his face from the gale threatening to rip the flesh from his bones.
All our work undone by a freakish storm, a
khamsin
, out of the deep desert.

Most of the men trying to cross the bridge had gone to ground when the thundering black wall had come roaring out of the east, but Colonna's detachment had tried to keep order on the span itself, shoving the remaining wagons across with main strength. Then the storm had hit, smashing them to the ground, tearing shields from men's backs. Carrying young Domus Aureus shrieking in fear, right off the bridge itself to fling him into the ravine.

The color of the air changed, deepening from a sickly yellow to a darker, more ominous shade. Colonna felt the wind shift too, and then suddenly it slacked off. Shaking dust and sand from his shaven head, the centurion staggered up and lurched out onto the road.

"Form up!" he started to call out to his men, then felt the echo of hooves on the ground.

Colonna turned sharply, his
gladius
sticking as it rasped out of a sheath clogged with red grit.

A horseman loomed out of the darkness, robes billowing in a following wind. Colonna started to shout, started to bring up his sword to block the lance tip flickering in the air.

Too late,
he thought, feeling the point punch through his shoulder. The metal scales of his armor rang, screeching as they crumpled under the impact. Colonna gasped, feeling his arm go numb. Blood spattered across his vision and then he was lying, arms and legs askew, in the spiny brush by the side of the road. A river of horsemen rushed past, their faces covered with scarves, their long robes flying around them.

More screams filtered through the air. The storm continued.

A fine rain of sand began to fall out of the air. Colonna blinked, trying to keep it out of his eyes. It was very dark.

The land lay gray under a sullen brown sky. A lone figure moved in the devastation, crawling slowly along the side of a military road. Dirty white flakes drifted on hot, sluggish air. Foot-high drifts of ash buried the road.

The figure was twisted and bent, one arm dragging uselessly in the powdery grit. Gasping in pain each time she moved, the woman crawled onward. The dim ochre disk of the sun was touching the western horizon before she stopped, overcome with exhaustion. The woman's rich red-gold hair had once been plaited into a single thick braid hanging down her back. Now the half-burned remains were matted and foul. Soot streaked her face and back, where a charred tunic clung to her flesh. Her arms, chest and legs were dark with ground-in pine needles.

She shuddered, wracked by a smoky cough. She lay on the stunted, burned grass, resting. Even lying perfectly still was torment. Her abused body was near death. Blood leaked slowly from dozens of cuts. There was a sound, muffled but distinct. The faint chuckling of water over rocks.

The woman raised her head, flinching from pain grinding like crushed glass in the nerves of her shoulders and neck. She could see the road dipping down ahead of her, and burned trees thick in a streambed.

Gritting her teeth, she dragged herself up onto the road. The smooth, carefully fitted stones drove cinders and tiny crescent-shaped flakes of volcanic glass into her good arm. With the tiny rise in height, she could see an arched bridge abutment ahead. She gasped, consumed by fierce, all-encompassing thirst. Dragging herself forward, she inched towards the bridge and the stream.

A dark pall hid the light of the stars. Even the moon was only a faint blur. The woman woke, shuddering with cold. Sharp rocks dug into her flesh. Her head lay in running water. Her nose and mouth were above the sluggish flow. She blinked, trying to focus on something in the darkness. There was nothing.

A sour, sulfurous taste filled her mouth and she tried to spit. Even that much effort brought a blinding wash of pain. Faint sparks flooded her vision. After a time they passed. Turning her head a little, she filled her mouth with water from the stream. It was strong-tasting and gritty, but it was water. She drank slowly. There was a vague memory of doing this before. Full, she leaned back, letting the current lap against her. She felt a chill seeping into her, but there was nothing she could do. Weariness overcame her.

A moon, bobbing and yellow, flickered over the edge of the bridge. The woman felt light touch her face and her gray-green eyes opened. The moon came closer and she heard the clatter of rocks knocking into one another.

The woman blinked and turned her head away from the moonlight. It was bright and hurt her eyes. What remained of her hair was floating in the current like a net, clogged with burned leaves and twigs.

"Otho! Look, another corpse in the stream."

The sound reverberated in the woman's skull. She tried to move her hand, to cover her face.

"Fool Celt, it's alive. See, the arm moved."

Metal clinked on stone and there was a splashing. The current changed, blocked, and the woman closed her eyes. The moon was close now, huge and burning. She could smell pitch and wax and the chalky odor of sweating men. Something touched her useless arm and she cried out.

Muted gray striped the woman's face. Her hair had been brushed back and covered a thin white pillow. The caked-on blood and soot were gone, revealing ugly bruises covering her face and neck. A cut above her eye was shiny with ointment. She lay on a narrow bed built into a wall.

The room rocked with an even rhythm. Bands of light, falling from a window set high above her, slowly moved across her body. Sometimes they faded away entirely and she lay in soft, dim quiet. From time to time she heard the braying of donkeys. But it was faint and muted by distance and the walls of red cedar surrounding her. Soft woolen blankets covered her. One arm lay atop the coverlet, bound in strips of cloth and held straight by wooden slats.

She snored softly. Occasionally she would stir and moan, but her mind was far from the world. A man sat with her, watching her quietly while she slept. He was elderly, with a polished bald head, a long white mustache and a prominent, skewed nose. His deep-set eyes watched her gently. His hands were thick with calluses and corded with muscle. Under his shirt, his body was lean and hard, without even the memory of fat.

The wagon rolled on, through the wasteland, leaving tracks in the ash that drifted across the Via Appia like snow.

The woman woke suddenly. She saw a dim ceiling, partially lit by candlelight. She drew breath and smelled beeswax and tallow and cedar wood and fresh linen. It smelled like home. Memories of pain warned her not to move her head, but her gray-green eyes wandered.

A bald man was sitting across from her, tusklike mustaches half lit by a candle.

"Salve,"
the man said. "I am Vitellix."

"Hello," the woman croaked. She stopped, her tongue feeling huge in her mouth. She was ravenously hungry and very thirsty. Everything tasted like sulfur. "Water, please."

The man nodded, his smooth round head bobbing in the light, and leaned close, a cup in his hands. The woman tasted copper on her lips as he tipped it for her. The water was cool and fresh. It felt heavenly on her tongue.

He stopped her before she drank too much. She lay back, relieved, on the pillow.

"Thank you," she said.

The man nodded his head gravely and sat back against the wall. She slept.

When she woke again the room had stopped rocking and sunlight slanted through the window. It was quiet and still in the little room. Outside she could hear the rattle of wood on wood and an odd
hup-hup-hup
sound. The pain had receded a little, letting her move her head and look around the room. The walls, which had seemed plain by candlelight, were joined planks. The wood was painted, in its upper courses, with scenes of bears and men and horses. The figures seemed to be part of a celebration or procession. Some wore masks while others went naked bearing standards before them. On the ceiling the gods looked down, their faces peering from blue-and-white-painted clouds. A golden-rayed sun surrounded the window.

"Hello?" The woman frowned; was this her voice? It was weak and harsh. What had happened to her? It should be clear and strong, ringing with command.

The door folded out of the wall. Bright sunlight and the smell of crushed green grass and damp oak trees spilled in. A head appeared; a girl with tousled brown hair, her nose wrinkling like a field mouse's. The woman in the bed tried to get up, but her right arm betrayed her and she fell back with a hiss.