David's skull crackled with the onset of a hangover. Somewhere amid the brittle pain a voice was telling him that he could, should, simply walk away from all this. Go west, the only direction from which the enemy hosts weren't approaching. Aim for the coast, get on a boat, find his way back to Cyprus and his garrison. Now was the time. His last chance, really. Wash his hands of this whole business. Forget Steven. Forget Zafirah. Return to the army and all he was familiar with. Return to his gods, Osiris of the Djed-pillar, Isis of the Harvest, begging their forgiveness with prayer and altar-sacrifice. Disentangle himself from the coils of a cause that he didn't truly hold with and a fraternal relationship that had turned upside down, with the older brother the thrall of the younger. Everything was wrong here. He knew it. He didn't belong. This was not his fight. He should quit while he still could. Getting through and out of Arabia would be difficult but not impossible. He was a smart and resourceful fellow. And if what was waiting for him when he rejoined the army was a court martial, so be it. He suspected, though, that in the light of its deeds at Petra the army might prefer to let him slip quietly back into the ranks. No questions asked, no awkward answers raised. Or else grant him an honourable discharge if he wanted it. Were he to leave Megiddo now, it would be to face an uncertain future — but there would at least be a future. Staying meant facing a very certain future, and a very short one.
He was tempted. But he resisted. And the temptation was unexpectedly easy to resist.
He would finish what he had started. He would fight here.
Not for the Lightbringer. Not for Steven.
For these people. The Freegyptians. For their sake.
He was David Westwynter, a paratrooper, a soldier, a good one.
His presence here would make little or no difference to the outcome of the battle.
But it would make all the difference in the world to him.
27. Megiddo
No ground force could hope to sneak up on an entrenched enemy unawares, especially not one of the size the Nephthysians had assembled. The Lightbringer's army had plenty of warning that the foe was coming. Scouts and spotters posted on hilltops radioed in with sightings of dust clouds on the horizon, then of long processions of troop transport bringing in men and materiel. They reported soldiers setting up tents, forward bases being established, Scarab tanks rolling to the forefront. Much of it was already happening before the bombing raid took place. After the raid, the pace of progress quickened. Infantry were organised into their regiments, drilled on tactics. Armoured divisions, meanwhile, headed out in formation to take up position at the foot of the valley. The grind of drive spheres drifted north towards Mount Megiddo like the rumble of a low-grade earth tremor.
A conservative estimate would put the total of Nephthysian troops at 20,000. Of Scarab tanks there were a good couple of hundred.
The Nephthysian generals had learned their lesson with the mummies at Suez, and had had it confirmed with the level of retaliation during the bombing raid. The Lightbringer was a wily and formidable opponent. His troops had spirit and bite. They were few in number but motivated. No chances should be taken. The generals had mustered many more troops than they'd thought they would need, but they would use them all. Absolute and overwhelming numerical superiority was called for.
And then there was the small matter of the Setic task force currently forging south, several columns of infantry and armour heading down through Armenia and Azerbaijan, skirting the eastern fringes of the Ottoman Empire to pass into Persia and Mesopotamia and beyond. They were still a day or two away from arriving, these reinforcements, and the Nephthysians were keen that by the time they got here the battle would be over and there would be nothing left for them to do, except maybe mop up the odd fleeing Freegyptian. It was a matter of pride. Intra-bloc politics. The Setics needed to be shown that the Nephthysians could handle things by themselves, thank you very much. A decree had come down from the Synodical Council to the generals: Prove to the Commissariat of Holy Affairs that we're not the bumbling inferiors they like to think we are.
The Lightbringer might have selected the battlefield but that was the only say he would have in determining the course of the battle itself. He and his troops were going to be wiped out. Instantly, decisively, devastatingly. A massacre.
By mid-morning the sky was overcast. Charcoal-smudge clouds moved in to hang low over the plain, blotting out the sun. Ra, it seemed, did not want to observe what was about to take place. A veil had been drawn.
The Lightbringer looked down from Mount Megiddo, scanning the scene with binoculars. His troops were in place. There was nothing else he could do except wait and watch, with his radio at hand so that he could give orders as and when necessary.
The grey sky pleased him. The Nephthysian Scarab tanks must be low on juice, having driven hard to get here, and now there was no sunlight to replenish their solar batteries, whereas his tanks had been sitting idle for days and were fully charged.
And that wasn't the only advantage he had.
There was still a trick up his sleeve. Something the Nephs simply wouldn't be expecting. A trump card.
He'd hinted as much to the warlords, and they had passed the word on down through the ranks.
The Lightbringer's small but resolute band of followers stood like a garden fence before an oncoming hurricane. It might just smash them to flinders. But if they could withstand it for a while, if they bent and broke but still stayed more or less intact, then…
Then…
Then everything would be very different.
The Nephthysian armoured divisions began their offensive shortly after midday. Phalanxes of Scarab tanks crawled northward. Within an hour they were close enough to the Lightbringer's forward positions to open fire. Their initial salvoes were met by intense return fire. Mortars and rocket-propelled grenades hammered them, along with volleys of various-coloured ba. Several of the tanks erupted in domes of purple light.
But there were more behind. For each one the Freegyptians destroyed, another came forward to take its place. Slowly, persistently, the tanks gained ground, visiting considerable damage on the Lightbringer's men and machines.
The four remaining C39s roared into action, strafing the tanks and swiftly notching up several bullseyes. The gunships were low on ammunition, however. Soon their missile pods were empty and their ba cells had run dry. They pounded away at the tanks with bullets, but then these too were gone. The only things left to use as weapons were the helicopters themselves.
Nonomura and his men prepared themselves for their death runs. Each pilot aimed for a concentration of tanks, intending to take four, five or more with them. The choppers flew across the plain at full speed, swooping on the Nephthysians. Inside, the crews sang Anubis's praises, telling him how almighty he was and how happy they were to be coming to meet him. One of the C39s didn't make it to its destination. A bolt from a blaster nozzle evaporated it in midair. The others, though, danced around the incoming ba and struck dead-on. Cascades of purple light erupted upwards as the groupings of tanks exploded, one igniting the next in a chain reaction.