The Egyptian paled, seeing raw fury in his master's face for the first time. The young Senator was not a man of great passions and the change was startling. Khamun knelt, swiftly. "My lord…"
"Be quiet." Octavian stared out at the dim lights of the city, a constellation of pale yellow and orange crashed upon the earth. "My agents, my men, will search for the boy. I will set Agrippa upon the task-he has never failed me! This child of conjoined Rome and Egypt will not be allowed to live. I am Caesar's only heir and I will have Rome for myself."
Octavian gestured for the Egyptian to rise. "Yet there is a task I have in mind for you, something I hope is within your skill! My reach is long… wherever you have hidden your beloved will not be far enough away, if you fail me again." The young Roman smiled suddenly, teeth white and feral in the half-darkness. "I will make a new Rome, a glorious, eternal Rome. You will help me. I have not ignored the little you have taught me of power and this hidden world you claim to master."
Khamun watched his master warily, though the Egyptian breathed a thankful prayer he still had some use. He did not want to die under the burning tongs-his ancestors would have laughed at such threats, but the blood of Khem was thin in these later days. "Of course, my lord, I am your servant."
CHAPTER TWO
A Street, North of the Forum Bovarium, Constantinople, Late Spring A.D. 625
A faint groan issued from beneath a heap of corpses. Pale sunlight fell on dead staring eyes, picking out faint gleams from buckles and rusted links of chain armor. The entire street was filled with scattered bodies-most of them burned beyond recognition-though many still held the semblance of life. There were no flies, no rooting, bloody-nosed dogs, no scavenging peasants, no crows or ravens or seagulls feasting on the flotsam of war. Empty windows stared down onto the sloping street, shutters scorched black by some awesome blast of flame that had raged up and down the avenue.
Bodies shifted, heavy gray arms falling away, thighs encased in armor clanging to the ground. A man clawed his way out of the corpse midden, face streaked with dried blood, armor dented and scratched. He stood, trying to muster the spit to clear his mouth. Dark eyes, almost black, took in the wreckage all around and the soldier grimaced. There was nothing moving, certainly nothing alive as far as his eye reached in either direction.
A great stillness pervaded the houses and crouched in the doors of the little shops. The soldier realized nothing lived, even in the dark, close rooms behind the facades. Grunting, he tried to climb up over the heap of half-naked bodies-part of his conscious mind registered Slavic spearmen, long hair stiff with white clay, their bodies intricately diagrammed with whorled signs in black and dark blue dye-and found his right arm weak. Frowning, he looked down on his forearm and realized a huge gash ripped from his wrist to the elbow, tearing through a sleeve of linked iron rings.
"Merciful gods!" The man hissed. Something had shattered his arm, cleaving right to the bone. An axe? He remembered something bright flashing towards him.
The soldier reached to undo the buckle at his shoulder and his left arm caught on something. Cursing, the man realized a long black-shafted arrow had wedged itself through the center of the iron links and clear through his forearm. The stubs of two more arrows were buried in his chest. Snarling, without even words to express his rage, the man broke the shaft of the arrow off at the base, rewarding himself with a popping sound and the slow welling of thick, dark blood around the wound. He ignored the arrows in his chest for the moment.
With swift, experienced motions, Rufio unbuckled the straps holding the armored sleeves to his shoulder plates, then jerked the heavy iron hauberk off over his head. The arrows in his chest snapped with a wet sound and he hissed with pain. A pale, welted body crisscrossed with terrible scars was revealed. The street remained silent and desolate. Even the sky was empty of birds. The uncanny stillness weighed on the soldier's mind. He assumed the city had fallen-but where was the occupying army? Where were the oppressed citizens?
Blunt fingers gripped the head of the arrow in his left arm, then dragged the shaft out through the muscle. The point emerged, slick with reddish-yellow fluid, and Rufio tossed the arrow away. He bent over, feeling abused muscle and bone creak. Two arrows were buried deep in his chest. Squatting, bracing his shoulders against the nearest building wall, Rufio lifted a spent shaft from the ground. Another dead Slav, lying facedown, flesh distended and purple, provided him with a moderately clean knife. Ignoring the throbbing pain in his left arm, Rufio cut the head from the arrow, then trimmed the resulting shaft, notching the blunt head into four quarters.
Clenching his jaw, Rufio wedged his trimmed arrow against the broken butt of the one in his shoulder, wiggling it until the notched head settled properly against its new friend. Then, holding his body as still as he could manage, the soldier bore down, pushing the arrow lodged in his body through, feeling it grind past bone and muscle, until it punched through the skin of his back. Tears streamed down his cheeks, cutting tracks in dried, crusty blood. Despite being half-blind, his entire body shimmering with pain, he carefully withdrew his dowel. With the iron head of the shaft sticking out of his back, Rufio managed to reach around and snag it with his thumb. Some wiggling around managed to slide the bolt free.
One more to go. Rufio lay back, panting, staring at the pale sky. A haze seemed to lie over the city, making even a clear bright sun, high in the bowl of heaven, seem faded and washed out. Oh, you cursed gods, the soldier thought bitterly, I never asked for this… to see nothing but an eternity of ruin and destruction! You should have left me safely dead, cursed physician!
But he remained alive, and though his entire body was trembling, he fitted the dowel, again, to the broken stub jutting from his chest and began to push. A long agonized groan escaped the soldier's lips as the arrow punched out his back.
CHAPTER THREE
North of the Reed Sea, Lower Egypt, Early Summer, A.D. 625
The stand of cane waved softly, moved by some zephyr of the upper air, creaking and rustling with quiet voices. A thin little man, wiry body given desperately needed bulk by layered leather armor, crouched at the edge of the thick green stalks, his lower body tugged by a sluggish current. The Roman peered through the foliage, ignoring the flies buzzing and crawling on every surface and the gelid sensation of leeches squirming against his legs. One of the man's hands was raised, bidding other men-hidden still further back among reeds and rubber trees thick on the banks of the canal-to wait, to be patient.
Beyond the screen of cane was a ford where the ancient brick sidings of the canal slumped away with age and use, leaving a high sandy bank cut by a rutted wagon path. Here in the lower delta of the Nile, silt filled old passages and the river-in times of flood-cut new channels on its way to the sea. From where Frontius was crouched, skin itching and nostrils filled with an overpowering stench, he could barely make out the paving stones that had once joined a proper road-a Roman road-to a bridge across the canal.
Frontius clenched his fist, feeling the water stir. Little dimples began to appear in the thick brown surface. A sound rose over the constant buzz and hiss, a thundering roll of hooves on sand and broken paving. A man appeared, jogging along the old road, leading a small tan horse. The new arrival was swathed in white and ochre, mail glinting through his robes, and a conical helm wrapped with a green flash. The scout, careful, probed the muddy water with a spear, then-even at this distance, in this heavy, nearly opaque air-Frontius could see the man smile. The old bridge had collapsed into the muck, making a firm, sandy bottom. The Arabian high-stepped through the water, but there was little need-the slow current barely covered the mare's fetlocks.