He leapt in, slashing diagonally, his full weight behind the blow. Thyatis jumped up, high in the air, her legs curling up under her. The sword carved empty air and the King stumbled forward, catching himself on the edge of the terrace. Thyatis stormed in, her fists and elbows smashing at his face. Chrosoes screamed as his nose shattered again. She snap-kicked his sword hand, catching the thumb at the joint. The saber clattered off down the steps to the second terrace.
The King of Kings swung wildly, his heavy fists bunched like tree roots.
Thyatis wove between the blows and spun, the back of her boot clipping Chrosoes on the side of his head. The skin ruptured, spewing blood. Hot rage welled up in her, giving her fists lightning speed. Chrosoes fumbled, trying to block her blows, but he was slowing. She hammered at his face and diaphragm again and again.
The tip of her boot flashed into his groin and he screamed, a high keening sound, and doubled up. Her right elbow cracked on the back of his neck, driving him to the ground. Her fingers clawed into his hair and dragged his head up.
A slim hand caught her raised fist as she pulled back for a strike to crush his larynx.
“No! Thyatis… you promised!” The Roman woman turned, the gray tunnel that had focused her entire world down to the bleeding, crushed face of the King falling away. Shirin held her hand. The Princess was muddy, with her hair a rat’s nest of dirt and leaves. Her hands, clinging tightly to Thyatis‘, were streaked with blood and dark bruises where she had sawn the cords away with the water-steel blade. The pale-yellow silk dress was utterly ruined, sopping wet, clinging to her in tatters.
“Leave him be,” Shirin said, pulling Thyatis away from the moaning shape on the ground. “He made his choice.”
Behind the Princess, fire suddenly blossomed from the roof of the palace. Shouts of excited men echoed from the windows. The low clouds were dark and glowing with the red of fires below. Ctesiphon was burning.
“The gate…” Thyatis whispered, suddenly feeling very weak. Shirin slid under her shoulder, her slim arm wrapped around Thyatis’ waist. Shirin started to drag her toward the steps, but Thyatis turned clumsily. Rain had started to fall, slanting through the glow of the flames that were licking around the domes of the palace. “My sword…”
Shirin cursed and propped Thyatis against the trunk of an apple tree. The Roman woman clung to it, feeling the blinding pain in her ribs and forearms for the first time. The Princess cast about on the grass, swearing like a sailor. The drizzle of rain began to swell, hissing through the leaves of the trees. Thyatis turned her face up to the sky, letting the falling water sluice across her face, cooling her skin.
The Princess ran up, soaked to the skin, her long hair plastered to her shoulders and back.
“Here,” she said, pushing the sword into Thyatis’ hands. “We must go.”
There was a sound of glass shattering and red light bloomed in the upper terrace. Shirin held Thyatis close and they stumbled down the steps. Thyatis looked back, seeing the palace outlined in roaring flame and steam. More glass shattered as the soldiers looting the chambers of the King began throwing things through the glassed doors. At the bottom of the garden Nikos was waiting, water running down his face, at the little gate. He was grinning fit to burst. He loved the wet.
Shirin dumped Thyatis into his arms and he ducked under the lintel, carrying her to the boat. The Princess turned back, wiping muddy water out of her eyes. Above her, the domes of the Palace of the Black Swan were blossoms of fire. Flames roared from the windows and smoke and steam climbed into the clouds in a great column. Helmeted figures capered on the balconies, throwing furniture and rugs into the courtyards below. At the top of the garden, outlined by the bonfire, a heavyset figure staggered. Shouts rang out.
Shirin wiped water from her face, her shoulders trembling. She turned away, pulling the iron door closed and putting her shoulder into the bar that held it closed from the other side. It was rusty and creaked for a moment before it slid home. With the door closed, the screams and crackle of falling timbers shut off.
The boat was a long skiff with a covered cabin at one end. Nikos stood in the stern, his bare toes gripping the planks of the deck, a heavy pole in his hands. Two Khazars reached up and helped Shirin into the boat. The Princess stepped gingerly to the little cabin and ducked down to crawl into it. Thunder rumbled in the heavens above. Lightning flickered from cloud to cloud. The Khazars cast off the mooring rope and Nikos dug in with the pole. The stones of the dock backed away, pooling with water in the downpour.
The boat slipped away into the storm, water pouring down all around it. Nikos, soaked to the bone, began singing a song of his youth as he held the tiller steady. The surface of the Tigris was broad and flat, dimpled with thousands of falling raindrops. Darkness folded around them. The Khazars put their backs into the stroke. The far shore was nearly a mile distant.
In the close darkness of the cabin, Shirin wormed herself into the woolen blankets, gathering her sleepy children around her. They murmured but fell asleep again, smelling her perfume in the night. It was warm, and the blankets were soft. The boat rocked gently from side to side with the stroke of the oars. The Princess drowsed, her babies in her arms, Thyatis’ exhausted breath soft in her ear, one scarred forearm curled across Shirin’s smooth stomach. Tears leaked from Shirin’s eyes, even after she had fallen into a deep sleep.
CROWS OVER PALMYRA
Dahak stood in the ruins of the Damascus Gate, fine gray ash puffing up beneath his boots as he paced. Two stonemasons, their faces white with fear, knelt before him, each holding the side of a black sheet of polished basalt. On the face of the stone, in ancient spiky letters, they had carved an inscription. Only Dahak could read the words graven there, but he found them a fine jest drawn from a memory of his youth. His fingers, clawlike and withered, caressed the surface of the stone. Its smoothness was a thing of beauty. The words read:
I destroyed them, tore down the wall, and burned the town with fire; I caught the survivors and impaled them on stakes in front of their towns… Pillars of skulls I erected in front of the city… I fed their corpses, cut into small pieces, to dogs, pigs, vultures… I slowly tore off his skin… Of some I cut off the hands and limbs; of others the noses, ears and arms; of many soldiers I put out the eyes… I flayed them and covered with their skins the wall of the city…
The Lord Dahak laughed softly to read it and held the hot feeling of revenge close to his heart. It warmed him, he who always felt a chill in his breast. He shuffled back to the steps of his wagon. His men had pulled it out of the ditch, and the loot of the palace adorned it. Plates of beaten gold covered the doors, etched with many symbols. The Lord Dahak had placed them there with acid brewed from the blood of living men. His right hand, almost fully fleshed again, grasped the railing and he pulled himself up.
“Nail it to the wall of the gate, there, above the entrance.”
The stonemasons bowed their heads to the stones of the ramp. They alone of all who had lived in the city before the coming of the Persians survived. Soldiers helped them raise the black stone up. Hammers rang, driving bolts of iron into the sandstone wall.
Dahak looked about him, seeing his handiwork. He was well pleased. The long walls of the city lay in ruins, torn down by heat and water and splitting bolts. The houses of the city were empty shells, scooped out by fire. No statue stood whole, no column in that long arcade of columns rested upon its base. The four houses of the gods of the city were shattered piles of cracked stone, brought down by his own hand. Windrows of skulls lay heaped around the gate, empty eyes staring at a brassy sky.