The entrance of the army of the Sahaba into Aelana had been a surprise to Mohammed. He knew that the ships of his small fleet could make better time on the wave-road than his cavalry could in the rocky uplands and desert that they crossed to get from Leuke Kome to the northern port. He had not expected, however, to find the green-andwhite banner of the Sahaba flying over the white-painted gate tower of the town, or to be met by a smiling and relaxed Khalid in the shadow of that same gateway.
"There was no garrison?" Khalid had nodded in assent as they had climbed the steps to the dingy tan building that had held the customs office.
Mohammed shook his head in amazement. "They were withdrawn to the north a month ago, according to Feyd here." Khalid had indicated a stooped man with a sun-browned face who had joined them once Mohammed' s command staff had reached the center of the town. The man, obviously a local, had a green-and-white flash on his tunic loop. "There is some trouble brewing up in Judea and the governor has summoned all available troops to a muster."
Mohammed had turned, his hand on the hilt of his saber, and surveyed the big room with its arched roof. Once, it had held the men who worked in the customs house; now it would hold his messengers and staff. Windows with triangular tops pierced the southern wall, showing bits and pieces of the blue gulf beyond and the broad golden beach that marked the seaside. Aelana was not a big town, but it had long piers of fitted stone over compacted rubble that provided a fine anchorage for his ships.
"What kind of trouble?" Mohammed leaned close to the youth, his hand on Khalid's shoulder.
Khalid smiled. He loved to tell a tale no one had heard before. The three weeks that he had been in the port had allowed him to gather up every scrap of gossip and rumor he could find.
"The cities of the Decapolis are in an uproar," he said with a grin. "Word has gotten around that the Empire left Zenobia and the Petrans out to dry during the invasion. Apparently some new detachments of Imperial troops have come down from the north to take up the old camps, and people have noticed that their sons and husbands have not returned at all."
Mohammed had nodded, a shadow falling across his face. Obodas of Petra and Zenobia had led the whole might of the Decapolis and Nabatea and Palmyra into a butcher's holiday first at Emesa and then in the siege of Palmyra. Some thousands had escaped from the Persian victory on the field of Emesa, scattering off to the south, but the rest had followed Zenobia to Palmyra.
"Then," Khalid continued, "someone started a rumor that there was to be a census."
The remaining manpower of this whole region had died there, trying to hold on until the Imperial Legions could reach them, paying in blood for each day, trying to buy Heraclius the time he needed to break the Persian armies in the north. Mohammed turned away, his throat bitter with the taste of bile. He leaned on one of the windowsills, his bushy eyebrows beetling over closed eyes. It had been a trap, but not for Persia. Heraclius had never intended to turn south and succor the loyal cities of the Decapolis and Judea. He had struck east, instead, and seized the Persian capital at Ctesiphon and won his war.
"And that, of course, means new taxes." The youth smiled grimly, his eyes never leaving Mohammed's face. "No one was pleased about the news."
But every man who had followed Zenobia into the gilded cage of Palmyra had died; all save Mohammed and his handful of Tanukh, who had only escaped by a hair. Jalal had seen to that, dragging Mohammed's body from the ruin of the Damascus gate and fleeing before the Persians could recover from the mage-battle that had flattened half the city. The Tanukh knew secret ways into and out of the city, ones they had used to harry the Persians during the longsiege. They had served, too, to let them flee. Zenobia had bought them that time, at least, holding out in the palace until the end, drawing the full attention of the dark power that strove against her.
"How goes the provisioning? What supplies did you find here?"
Mohammed pushed himself away from the windowsill and turned back to Khalid. The youth was ready, a marked tablet in his hands. The Quryash smiled, seeing the eagerness of the young man to excel.
He will be an even greater general than I, mused Mohammed, bending over the table to see how many barrels of water, sheaves of arrows, tuns of figs, and casks of dried meat were to hand.
The moon continued to rise as the Arabs climbed up out of the wadi. A wide plateau of stone tilted up from the streambed, and cairns of rocks marked a path across it. Now, Mohammed knew, they were nearing the head of the Siq, where that narrow slot canyon opened out into the valley that held Petra. He looked back, seeing his men toiling steadily up the slope, a long dark line of figures with long shadows reaching before them. The moon was very clear in this high place and they moved swiftly.
A little time passed as they crossed the open plateau, passing before the gaping mouths of abandoned tombs cut from the rock, and then they came to another slot canyon athwart their path. A cairn marked a place where the path plunged down into the shadowed ravine. Mohammed could smell water and green growing things in the darkness below. Crouching at the lip of the slot, he listened, his eyes closed, his mind quiet.
No sound of man or beast came from below, only the ripple of water on stone and the drip-drip-drip of some seeping spring. If he remembered aright, this canyon led down past two or three catchment dams to a bowl in the mountain where the passage of the Siq ended and the city itself began. There would be guards there in plenty.
He shuttered his lantern and motioned for the men behind him, squatting on the ground, to do the same. Here they could descend behind the guards at that gate, taking them by surprise, but sound carried easily in these canyons and they would have to go slowly and carefully.
He stood, squinting back at the shadowed lumps of his men, and motioned for Shadin. Jalal and Khalid, along with the bulk of the army, were waiting in the swale of the Wadi Musa, beyond sight of the first gate into the Siq. They were waiting for a signal that the raiding party had seized the entrance to the city from behind.
A dark figure detached itself from the shadow under one of the great boulders and scuttled toward him.
Listen! Do you hear it? Do you hear the doom of men?
Mohammed started, surprised. But the voice had already faded. There was a sound, a whisper, carried on the night wind.
Mohammed stopped, listening. Then, faintly, he heard it: massed voices on the air. He looked up and saw, on the mountaintop that rose to the south of the city, the glare of a bonfire and the outline of hundreds of people standing in the High Place. The people of the city raised their voices in homage to some god that lived behind the sky. When Mohammed had passed through the red city before the furtive nature of the locals, their odd, secretive customs and the bitter aftertaste of the water had just set his nerves on edge. Now the sound of that chanting and the half-heard words ignited a cold anger in his breast. He stopped, feeling his arm trembling.
"My lord?" The Quryash turned, his face grim. The bulky Tanukh was at his side, his helmet and armor wrapped in dark cloth to muffle the sound and prevent any betraying gleam of light. The man's eyes glinted in the darkness, catching a reflection from the lights of the city and the fire on the mountaintop. More Sahaba moved past, as quietly as they could, filtering down the stair with their weapons out.
"There is a ceremony underway, there on the High Place." Mohammed pointed up, indicating the red glare that lit the mountaintop. "I must stop it. I will take half of the men and go up the Long Stair. You take the rest and seize the guardpost at the end of the Siq. With luck, Jalal will be waiting for you. Then follow the plan."