“I will be at your back, then, Al’Quraysh.”
There was the echo of another boom, louder than the first.
“Go, your purpose is getting impatient.”
He bowed again and strode out, his boots clicking on the polished tiles.
When he was gone, Zenobia returned to the bed and crawled across its expanse. Her fingers traced the forehead, sharp nose, and lips of the man lying in it. She bent close and kissed him, though he did not move. She felt only a faint breath on her cheek, but it was enough to know that he was alive.
“Well, my love, sleep in peace. I have duty to attend to.”
Zenobia stood up, feeling the leather strapping of the bed give under her weight, and pulled the slip off over her head. She stepped lightly off the bed and ran a hand through her hair. It was a mess and she frowned at the tangles caught in her fingers.
Silly, she thought to herself, it doesn’t matter if my hair is combed and brushed for death.
But then she paused and turned the silver mirror on her wardrobe toward her. No, she thought, today it does matter.
She rang a small glass bell, summoning her servants to draw her bath and dress her.
Mohammed looked out over the plain before the city. It seethed like an enormous anthill with men and horses and engines of war. The Persians had been coming down out of the hills since the dawn had broken, long lines of spearmen hurrying down the road. Horsemen thundered past, their lances glittering like stars. Four more great siege towers had been raised up and now they crouched a hundred yards from the wall. Stone-throwers couched behind battlements of rocks and raised earth lay behind them. As Mohammed watched, the one nearest the gate released, sending a boulder the size of a small man flying into the air.
“ ‘Ware!” echoed in a shout down the line of the battlement. Men ducked their heads below the merlons. The stone hissed through the air and struck the pinnacle of the left tower at the gate. Stone splintered violently on stone and shards of rock sprayed on the men crouched below. The gate tower stood unmoved, though another pale scar had been gouged from the sandstone facing.
Mohammed stood again, his hand shading his eyes. Hundreds of Persian archers in light armor and quivers full of arrows were running forward toward the gate. Among them, men jogged under the weight of mantlets woven from reeds gathered from the stream that fell away east of the city and leather cured from their own horses. All along the front of the enemy army, regiments and battalions were forming up. Men jostled to raise ladders to their shoulders. Arrows began to fly up from the advancing ranks, a dark cloud of angry birds.
“This is it,” Mohammed said to his commanders, stepping back from the fighting slit. “He has come out.”
Away, across the plain, behind the engines and the tens of thousands of men, a black wagon drawn by ten black horses had appeared on the road. A solid wall of knights in heavy armor surrounded it. Their banners were dark,
A
long fluttering pennons in the shape of serpents with scarlet scales. Around it, the marching men of the Persian army shied away, leaving a great clear space. Mohammed blinked-the air seemed to twist and shimmer over the distant image.
“Ten serpents…” he muttered, pursing his lips in thought. He shook his head, unable to dredge up the memory.
“To arms!” Mohammed shouted, his voice ringing out over the battlements and the shattered buildings behind the wall. Metal rang on stone as the Palmyrenes rushed to the wall. The Southerner looked out over them, a ragged line of men in battered armor and scarred faces. Too few of them were soldiers; most were the men of the city forced to defend their homes. Many had never held a spear or hacked at another man with a sword before these days. Now they were blooded veterans, forged hard in this hellish place. Mohammed turned back to the wall. Arrows rained out of the sky, clattering on the stones. He pressed himself close to the dun-colored brickwork.
Men along the battlement popped up, loosed their arrows into the running mass of Persians heading for the wall, and then ducked back down again. Mohammed drew his saber and checked the edge for chips or cracks. Shouting rose from below the wall. Another great stone caromed off of the nearest tower and bounced down onto the wall. Mohammed turned his head and cowered behind his shield. The stone plowed into a knot of men, bakers by the signs they had painted on their shields, and smashed them into a bloody dough of splintered bones and crushed intestine. Arrows fell like rain.
The ladders hit the wall, a long rippling rattle of wood on stone. Mohammed sprang up and raised his saber.
“Up! Up!” he screamed. “To the walls!”
The two Tanukh who shadowed the general stabbed out with their spears, pushing at the slats of the nearest ladder. One spear caught and the man put his shoulder into it. The ladder slid sideways and then suddenly toppled over. Screams and yells of anger filled the air. Mohammed ran back up onto the fighting platform that jutted from the side of the tower. Hundreds of ladders had gone up along the wall and the men of the city were furiously engaged, shoving them back. The city archers fired down into the masses of men swarming at the base of the wall, their arrows punching down into upturned faces. Another stone sailed oyer the wall and crashed through the tile roof of a building across the street. Fire gouted up from the ragged hole.
The sky above was serene and blue, clear as a high mountain lake.
Zenobia stepped out onto the broad brick platform that was raised before the vast bulk of the palace. The gates were swung wide and a constant stream of women, children, and old men poured up the ramp and into the precincts of the royal family. She walked out onto one of the buttresses that held the great winged lions, her left hand on the muzzle of the beast. Her attendants had repaired her golden armor and polished her silver helm to a brilliant sheen. She had added a long cape of purple with a gold trim as well. The wings that swept back from her face gleamed in the sun. It was heavy on her head and a trail of sweat trickled down the side of her cheek.
The people pushing past below in the gate looked up at her and smiled, though their faces were haunted by the long siege. Many raised their hands to her, seeking her blessing. She smiled down upon them. There was little she could do now, though the sight of her brave figure might give them hope for the hours that remained. She felt cold inside, shaky with apprehension.
The lion trembled under her hand and a moment later the air shook with the sound of a deafening crash. Zenobia’s head snapped around and across the city. At the distant embattled gate she caught sight of a vast towering shape out of the corner of her eye, something wreathed in smoke and flame, looming over the towers. Titanic wings unfurled and Zenobia reeled, gripped by a terrible nausea. The sun seemed to dim and the earth grew silent. The shape struck downward and there was a tremendous booming sound. It struck again and towers and stone cracked. It struck a third time and the gate towers crumbled in a huge gout of dust and smoke. The tower to the right side of the gate split down the side and tilted over. Hundreds of tons of sandstone and concrete crumbled down into the street. The thing moved in the smoke and fire roared up. A nightmare head was’thrown back in howl of victory and Zenobia fell to her knees, her heart thudding like a dove.
Across the width of plaza, men and women threw themselves to the ground, shrieking in fear. The darkness on the sun choked the sky. Zenobia struggled to rise, her mouth twisted in a feral scream of rage and defiance. The thing at the gate stomped forward, its mammoth shoulder brushing against the second tower. The stone crumbled and cracked, sending screaming men flying from the platform. Zenobia staggered to her knees and raised the sword of her father up. Her mouth struggled to cry out, but the air was chill and cold and no sound escaped her lips.