As Nephet watched, one young centurion-fighting alone against three robed Persians-blocked a stroke, then ducked nimbly aside, warned by the spirit-shape of another, older, stronger centurion-perhaps centuries dead-who shadowed his every movement. Other ghosts flickered in the air, knocking aside Arab arrows and sling stones falling from the sky.
A vast shape, anchored by three burning stars, swung forward towards the second wall. Nephet staggered, looking upon the shape of the enemy. Part of his mind yammered in fear, faced with the horror of a god loosed upon the earth. Fool! shouted his conscious will, this is no god! They sleep, buried in the ice, imprisoned under the sea. This is illusion!
Set looked down upon him with blazing wolf-eyes, the head grown so large it blocked out the sky. The sun was reduced to a pale red disk, wreathed in smoke and the fume of battle. An ebon hand reached down, splintering the earth. Nephet felt his physical body topple over, but the Caesar Aurelian caught him in a powerful grip. The priest's attention turned away, summoning up power from the soil, from the stones, from the lifeblood of the Nile at his back.
Sons of Horus, to me! Swift thought winged across the battlefield.
This brought a second shock-worse than the first. Only a half-dozen minds responded, some faint and weak, some strong, approaching rapidly from the west. Are the others dead? Nephet called into the dark void. Then, at the edge of perception, through storms of anger, fear and despair, he caught the faint scent of panic and flight. The priest blazed bright with fury. They run? The mad fools! There is no escape now, not even in death.
Nephet whirled, those few companions rushing forward to join him.
Too late, old man. A sly tickling brushed against his consciousness. Nephet froze, startled by a vaguely familiar touch.
Bow before me, like these others, it whispered, and you will live.
The old priest settled his mind; calming his heart, letting fear wash away, sand spilling into the desert, leaving only unblemished stone. No, he answered into the void, seeing the enemy loom over him, three burning eyes blotting out the sun. I will not yield.
Khalid clambered across fallen brick and square-cut timbers. He'd snatched up a round shield from one of the fallen. The breach in the rampart was wide, but with hundreds of his men, now joined by a few Persian diquans in heavy armor, swarming through the gap, he found himself among a crowd. The Sahaba chanted as they picked their way forward in a loose, disorganized line.
Ah-la-la-la-la! The long, ululating wail raised the hackles on Khalid's neck, though he had ridden to battle with the men of the desert many times. Thin curtains of smoke rolled across the field, obscuring the enemy. Khalid trotted forward, fearless, and found himself on a rubble-strewn road of planks, looking down into a second dry canal. Staked fences crisscrossed the canal bed.
"To me, Sahaba!" he screamed, turning, waving the ebon blade. "Bannermen, to me!"
A green flag appeared among streaks of white fog, sword and crescent moon plain on the simple fabric. Khalid felt his heart swell to see the banner of his people. "Over here!"
Deep shouts belled out, then the rush of booted feet. Khalid whirled, the sword licking across the face of a Roman soldier. The legionary ducked, shoving a heavy, rectangular shield at the Arab. Khalid skipped back, feeling the planks twist uneasily beneath his feet. The Roman stabbed underhand, the triangular tip of his short blade slamming into the edge of Khalid's shield. The Arab hacked overhand and the sable edge of the blade rang away from the iron rim of the big scutum. Gasping for breath, Khalid parried another stab, then slashed at the man's feet. The shield interposed again, sending the point of the blade belling away.
A line of Romans appeared out of the smoke, moving shoulder to shoulder, their shields a solid wall of laminated wood and iron. The Sahaba howled, rushing forward, swords and spears glittering. The legionaries answered with a hoarse bark of rage, standing their ground, and a sharp melee resulted-blades and spear points darting as each side tried to gain the advantage. Two burly Arab spearmen pushed past Khalid, slamming twelve-foot pikes into the Roman shields. One shield slipped, exposing the man behind, and he screamed, taking an iron spear point in his armpit. Blood smeared the leaf-shaped blade and the Arabs yelled wildly, trying to push into the opening. The Roman soldier fell away, vomiting blood, to be trampled underfoot. Legionaries filled the gap, jostling shoulder to shoulder.
Khalid wiped his brow, catching his breath. The battle eddied around him, leaving him alone and unmolested for an instant. The vast shape of the jackal towered across the canal, wreathed in lightning, staggering under bursts of fire. A constant boom-boom-boom shook the air, deafening everyone. Khalid barely noticed now, his attention focused on staying alive for just another grain. His Sahaba were locked in a fierce, stand-up melee in the rampart breach. Roman soldiers crowded in on the roadway from either side of the gap, trying to pinch off their position. More Arabs scrambled forward over the rubble, but now Roman archers on the shattered ends of the rampart shot down at them as they ran.
A basso thwang echoed in the air and a six-foot-long bolt snapped out of the smoke, ripping through the ranks of the Arabs fighting in the breach. Khalid spun, then cursed. The jackal was writhing in flame and lightning, leaving the Roman bastions across the canal free to fire their siege engines into the crowd of Sahaba. We need more men, Khalid realized, stomach going cold. Or they'll crush us.
Blade firmly in hand, he darted off into the drifting smoke, running back towards the Persian lines.
The jackal swung round, tripartite eye blazing, and the air convulsed. Something sped at Nephet, a whirling disk of blue-black fire. Desperate, his hands slashed into a complex pattern. The shield of Athena flared sun-bright, threads of green fire leaping into the shimmering globe from earth, stone and sky. The black disk collided, shattering into ravening lightning with a howl of sparks. Nephet was thrown down, stunned by the blast. His shield wavered, splintered, then collapsed in azure rain. Shaking off momentary weakness, the old Egyptian surged up, staff stabbing at the enemy.
The colossal shape of the jackal plowed into the second wall, grappling with the weaker, newer, matrix of battle wards. Nephet wept to see how frail the anchors were, how weak the lattice vaulting up in the hidden world. He and the other priests had only worked on binding a ward of defense into the inner wall for a week. Surely not enough time to withstand this thing's power… Spirit flames roared around black limbs, the jackal's mouth gaping wide, spilling dirty gray mist. The god ground into the defense, brawny chest streaked with clinging fire, splintering stakes underfoot, massive arms smashing through golden veils.
Muttering old words, passed down from priest to priest from the time of the Drowning, Nephet slammed his staff into the earth, fist jerking in the air, clutching at emptiness, then opening in a hard, sharp motion towards the shifting, immaterial titan. A jagged arc flashed in the air, arrowing into the thing's side. There was an efflorescence of rainbow color-blotting out the sun, casting wild shadows in all directions-and the jackal screamed, overcome. The shape toppled over, crashing against the failing pale gold wall. Cracks rippled across the ephemeral surface, then the wards closed, adapting to the blow, sliding together again.