The stone walkway along the river rippled with the shock of the stones under the main gate rupturing in a blossom of white-hot flame. Zoe was hurled aside into Dwyrin, and the two of them fell into the river in a tangle of limbs. Eric, who had happened to be looking toward the gate when Dwyrin’s foundation stone erupted, was blinded by the flare of light and then spun around and thrown, afire, into the river. He wailed once as the dark waters closed over his head with a slap and then he was gone. Odenathus, who had been crouched at the very end of the walkway, felt a hot wind rush over him, and he clung tenaciously to the stones at his back.
The valves of the gate rose up in the air on a blast of white fire, torn from their hinges like impossibly large leaves. They tumbled over and over and then arrowed down into the river like giant axes, punching through the sides of two of the barges, spilling stunned Romans in heavy armor into the dark, crowded waters. The two towers on either side of the gate shook with the force of the blast but stood firm, though the men inside them were deafened by the shock of the sound. The inner courtyard behind the gate was filled with the shattered bodies of men wrapped in flame. The archers who had run forward to cover the advance of the tortoise were incinerated where they stood or smashed to the ground or thrown off the bridge into the river. The tortoise was blown back twenty feet, crushing the men inside to a pulp and then sliding another ten feet on the bloody grease that they made.
The men behind the tortoise were bowled over; many where killed or maimed. The gruff centurion, half blinded by a wood splinter that had spun out of the tortoise and slashed the side of his face open, staggered up out of the mass of tumbled men.
“Advance!” he bellowed and loped forward over the corpses of his friends. The cohorts of the Third Augusta picked themselves up behind him and rushed forward as well, though their hobnailed sandals slipped and skidded on the blood and bodies of the dead men. “Roma Victrix!” they shouted as they ran, a great basso roar.
Dwyrin struggled in the icy water. Darkness surged around him, the current dragging at his body with chill fingers. He clung to Zoe fiercely with his left arm wrapped around her midriff, while he kicked strongly and clawed at the water with his right arm. The river spun them around, and suddenly the darkness broke as Dwyrin’s head shot above the water. A red glare lit up the surface of the water, and Dwyrin could see the flanks of boats all around him. The bow of one rushed toward him from the left. The Hibernian kicked sideways, rolling onto his back and pulling Zoe onto his chest.
#His legs, filled out with muscle over the past weeks, kicked hard, pushing him through the water. The boat surged past, huge and black, with the pale faces of men staring over the side. Dwyrin gasped for air, nearly swamped by the wake. It passed and he continued to kick. He found the bank with his head, ramming into a stone in the shallows downstream from the walls of the city. He cried out in pain but did not let go of Zoe, who was a dead weight in his arms. Dwyrin staggered up, dragging her out of the river through a torn-up cluster of reeds. Around him the night was alive with the shouts of men, the red glow of the burning citadel, and running figures. More boats were piling up against the shore, and legionnaires were climbing out into the muddy shallows. He lay Zoe down once he found ground firm enough to hold her. She was not breathing. Dwyrin felt a chill.
He rolled her on her side, wrapped his arms around her abdomen, and squeezed hard. Her body twitched and water dribbled out of her mouth. He squeezed again and there was a burp of muddy water. Dwyrin‘, his motions quick, rolled her back over and tipped her head back. Fighting back tears, he leaned over her and breathed into her mouth. Soldiers ran past in the murk and centurjons bellowed, trying to organize their men. Zoe coughed, spewing water and bile into Dwyrin’s face. He wiped it out of his eyes and leaned back. The dark-haired girl coughed again and he rolled her over. She spit up more liquid but now she was breathing.
Dwyrin held her close, trying to warm her cold body with his. There was a rumbling sound from the city, and new flames shot up. In the ruddy light, Dwyrin could see lines of men trotting off through the brush toward the walls. Zoe trembled in his arms. Fire gleamed off of the water like a stain of living blood.
THE IRONWORKS, CONSTANTINOPLE
Along rod of white-hot iron, gripped between pincers held in hands gloved with a triple layer of leather, plunged into slick dark water with a tremendous hiss. The forge man stepped back, raising the iron rod from the quenching bath. It hissed and steamed, water sluicing from it. The forge man turned and laid the rod on a massive block of steel where another man joined him, seizing it between his own pair of pincers. A hammer, massive and solid, rang down on the glowing bar. Sparks flew, joining thousands of others clouding the superheated air of the forge.
Maxian stalked through the darkness, his hollow cheeks puddles of shadow. Abdmachus drifted behind him, his clothing stripped down to a pair of trousers and sandals. Sweat slicked his skin, muddying the tracery of inked symbols that covered the little sorcerer’s body. The roaring fire of the forges and crucibles gleamed off Maxian’s face, highlighting his nose and cheekbones. The noise was so great from the hammers and spitting cauldrons that a man could barely hear himself think. Around the Prince, dozens of men in heavy leather aprons labored, their muscled bodies slick with sweat. The air was thick, charged with fumes and vapors. Maxian climbed a stairway of stone to a platform that rose from one side of the great chamber.
Below him he could see the whole floor of the ironworks. A great apparatus was rising amid the open space between the rows of forges and pits of molten iron. Sparks showered from hammers bent to the task of welding iron to iron. Men carefully raised the bones of a great skeleton high, helped by a dizzying array of winches and pulleys that were suspended from a ceiling lost in smoke and fumes. The outline of vast jagged wings arched over the chamber, high above, even Maxian as he stood on the platform, feeling the roar of noise beat on him like the ocean tide. His eyes gleamed in the ruddy light.
Ah, Aurelian, he mused, you would love these works more than any man…
“You have done well, my friend,” Maxian said, turning a little toward the Persian.
Abdmachus bowed and then met the Roman’s eyes. The little sorcerer’s face split with a grin. This construction was his greatest work. Maxian smiled back, pleased that his friend had found a true purpose at last. Without him and his skills, this effort would be impossible.
The men on the floor did not look up, though they felt the gaze of their master upon them. The Prince looked up into the face of the creature, cruel and fanged, enormous, a tilted head with a long snout and deep-set eyes.
Soon, the Prince thought, you will live.
The great head, wider than a man was tall, gazed back at him, soulless, eyeless, only pits of darkness lit with flames. Maxian turned and stepped through a heavy circular door raised up on hinges of dark corroded iron. Beyond the portal the noise ceased, becoming only a dull background rumble of hammers, and gears and spitting metal fire. Abdmachus wiped his brow and then stepped lightly down the stairs. Work was beginning on one of the wing joints, and it needed his delicate hand at the casting.
Krista was waiting in the room of documents, her long hair tied back behind her head, though it flared out first and then spilled over her shoulders. She wore a smock stained with dark pinpoints and a blousy shirt with heavy sleeves that were tied back from her wrists. There was a smudge of sooty ink on the side of her nose. Maxian’s ears ware still ringing from the cacophony of the forge. Her lips moved, but he could not hear anything for a moment.