Year of the Saint 551
The city of God was burning...
Long plumes of fire sailed up from the streets like wind-coiled banners, detaching to consume themselves and become lost in the grim thunderheads of impenetrable smoke that towered above the flames. For miles along the Ostian River the city burned and the buildings crumbled, their collapse lost in the all-encompassing roar of the fire. Even the continuing noise of battle by the western gates, where the rearguard was still fighting, was swallowed up by the bellowing inferno.
The cathedral of Carcasson, greatest in the world, stood stark and black against the flames, asolitary sentinel horned ith steeples, nippled with domes. The massive granite shrugged off the heat but the lead on the roof was melting in rivulets and the timber beams were blazing were blazing all along their length. The bodies of priests littered the steps; the Blessed Ramusio gazed down sorrowfully with a horde of the lesser saints in attendance, their eyes cracking open, the bronze staffs they held buckling in the inferno. Here and there a gargoyle, outlined in scarlet, grinned malevolently down.
The palace of the High Pontiff was full of looting troops. The Merduks had ripped down tapestries, hacked apart relics for the precious stones that adorned them, and now they were drinking wine out the Holy Vessels whilst they waited their turn with captured women. Truly, Ahrimuz had been good to them today.
Further westwards within the city, the streets were clogged with fleeing people and the troops who had been stationed here to guard them. Hundreds were trampled underfoot in the panic, children abandoned, and the old and slow kicked aside. More than once a collapsing house would bury a score of them in a fury of blazing masonry, but the rest would spare hardly a glance. Westwards they forged, west towards the gates still held by Ramusian troops, the last remnant of John Mogen's Torunnans, once the most feared soldiers in all the west. These were a desperate rabble now, their valour bled away by the siege and the six assaults which had preceded the last. And John Mogen was dead. Even now, the Merduks were crucifying his body above the eastern gate where he had fallen, cursing them to the last.
The Merduks poured through the city like a tide of cockroaches, glinting and barbed in thel ight of the fires, their faces shining, sword arms bloody to the elbows. It had been a long siege and a good fight, and at last the greatest city of the west was theirs for the taking. Shahr Baraz had promised to let them loose once the city had fallen and they were intent on plunder. It was not they who were burning the city, but the retreating western troops. Sibastion Lejer, lieutenant of Mogen, had sworn to let not one building fall intact into the hands of the heathens and he and a remnant of men still under orders were methodically burning the palaces and arsenals, the storehouses and pleasure theatres and churches of Aekir, and slaughtering anyone, Merduk or Ramusian, who tried to stop them.
Long plumes of fire sailed up from the streets like wind-coiled banners, detaching to consume themselves and become lost in the grim thunderheads of impenetrable smoke that towered above the flames. For miles along the Ostian River the city burned and the buildings crumbled, their collapse lost in the all-encompassing roar of the fire. Even the continuing noise of battle by the western gates, where the rearguard was still fighting, was swallowed up by the bellowing inferno.
The cathedral of Carcasson, greatest in the world, stood stark and black against the flames, asolitary sentinel horned ith steeples, nippled with domes. The massive granite shrugged off the heat but the lead on the roof was melting in rivulets and the timber beams were blazing were blazing all along their length. The bodies of priests littered the steps; the Blessed Ramusio gazed down sorrowfully with a horde of the lesser saints in attendance, their eyes cracking open, the bronze staffs they held buckling in the inferno. Here and there a gargoyle, outlined in scarlet, grinned malevolently down.
The palace of the High Pontiff was full of looting troops. The Merduks had ripped down tapestries, hacked apart relics for the precious stones that adorned them, and now they were drinking wine out the Holy Vessels whilst they waited their turn with captured women. Truly, Ahrimuz had been good to them today.
Further westwards within the city, the streets were clogged with fleeing people and the troops who had been stationed here to guard them. Hundreds were trampled underfoot in the panic, children abandoned, and the old and slow kicked aside. More than once a collapsing house would bury a score of them in a fury of blazing masonry, but the rest would spare hardly a glance. Westwards they forged, west towards the gates still held by Ramusian troops, the last remnant of John Mogen's Torunnans, once the most feared soldiers in all the west. These were a desperate rabble now, their valour bled away by the siege and the six assaults which had preceded the last. And John Mogen was dead. Even now, the Merduks were crucifying his body above the eastern gate where he had fallen, cursing them to the last.
The Merduks poured through the city like a tide of cockroaches, glinting and barbed in thel ight of the fires, their faces shining, sword arms bloody to the elbows. It had been a long siege and a good fight, and at last the greatest city of the west was theirs for the taking. Shahr Baraz had promised to let them loose once the city had fallen and they were intent on plunder. It was not they who were burning the city, but the retreating western troops. Sibastion Lejer, lieutenant of Mogen, had sworn to let not one building fall intact into the hands of the heathens and he and a remnant of men still under orders were methodically burning the palaces and arsenals, the storehouses and pleasure theatres and churches of Aekir, and slaughtering anyone, Merduk or Ramusian, who tried to stop them.
*****
Aurungzeb the Golden, third Sultan of Ostrabar, was dallying with the pert breasts of his latest concubine when a eunuch paddled through the curtains at the end of the chamber and bowed deeply, his bald pate shining in the light of the lamps.
"Highness."
Aurungzeb glared, his black eyes boring into the temerarious intruder who remained bowed and trembling.
"What is it?"
"A messenger, Highness, from Shahr Baraz before Aekir. He says he has news from the army that will not wait."
"Highness."
Aurungzeb glared, his black eyes boring into the temerarious intruder who remained bowed and trembling.
"What is it?"
"A messenger, Highness, from Shahr Baraz before Aekir. He says he has news from the army that will not wait."
*****
The Grace of God, a square-rigged caravel, slid quietly into Abrusio at six bells in the forenoon watch, the water a calm blue shimmer along her sides dotted with the filth of the port. Where the sun struck the sea there was a white glitter, painful to look at. A faint northwest breeze--the Hebrionese trade--enabled her to waft in like a swan, with hardly a rope to be touched by the staring crew despite the outrage of the boatswain.
Abrusio. They had heard the bells of its cathedral all through the last two turns of the glass, a ghostly echo of piety drifting out to sea.
Abrusio, capital of Hebrion and greatest port of the Five Kingdoms. It was a beautiful sight to behold when coming home from even a short coasting voyage such as the Grace's crew had just completed; an uneasy cruise along the Macassar coast, haggling with the Sea-Rovers over tolls, one hand to their dirks and the slow-match burning alongside the culverins all the while. But profitable, despite the heat, the flies, the pitch melting in the seams and the marauding river lizards. Despite the feast drums at night along the bonfire-studded coast and the lateen-winged feluccas with their cargoes of grinning corsairs. Safe in the hold were three tons of ivory from the skeletons of great marmorills, and fragrant Limian spice by the hundredweight. And they had lost only one man, a clumsy first-voyager who had leaned too far out over the rail as a shallowshark passed by.
Now they were back among the Monarchies of God, where men made the Sign of the Saint over their viands and the Blessed Ramusio's likeness stared down upon every crossroads and market place.
Abrusio. They had heard the bells of its cathedral all through the last two turns of the glass, a ghostly echo of piety drifting out to sea.
Abrusio, capital of Hebrion and greatest port of the Five Kingdoms. It was a beautiful sight to behold when coming home from even a short coasting voyage such as the Grace's crew had just completed; an uneasy cruise along the Macassar coast, haggling with the Sea-Rovers over tolls, one hand to their dirks and the slow-match burning alongside the culverins all the while. But profitable, despite the heat, the flies, the pitch melting in the seams and the marauding river lizards. Despite the feast drums at night along the bonfire-studded coast and the lateen-winged feluccas with their cargoes of grinning corsairs. Safe in the hold were three tons of ivory from the skeletons of great marmorills, and fragrant Limian spice by the hundredweight. And they had lost only one man, a clumsy first-voyager who had leaned too far out over the rail as a shallowshark passed by.
Now they were back among the Monarchies of God, where men made the Sign of the Saint over their viands and the Blessed Ramusio's likeness stared down upon every crossroads and market place.
))