Men of Bronze

by Scott Oden

  Her body was balled up tight against his side; her hands twitched, and the muscles in her legs quivered. A veil of hair hid her face from view, though Barca heard a faint moan escape her lips. He kissed her gently, stroking her scalp. Jauharah was an exceptional woman: strong yet compassionate, brave yet vulnerable. She could have been a queen had Fate not made her a slave. But then, in Barca's experience, Fate had a way of punishing the innocent and rewarding the wicked.

  Quietly, he rose from the bed and slipped on his kilt. There was no way he could sleep, not with so many concerns running through his mind. How to handle Qainu, how to extract Callisthenes from the Arabian's grasp, how to defend Gaza from within and without, even how to treat Jauharah. What did he feel for her, and would it interfere with hisjudge- ment? He …

  "Hasdrabal?" Jauharah said, her voice thick and drowsy. She stretched and rolled toward him. "Is something wrong? Come back to bed."

  "No, everything's fine. I have never been able to sleep for any length," Barca said. He picked up his breastplate and set it on the small table, trying to ignore the lush invitation her body made.

  "Nightmares?" Jauharah asked. She reached down and snagged her shift off the floor, draping it across her naked breasts and thighs.

  Barca shrugged. "Sometimes. You have them too, I noticed."

  Jauharah sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. "I only have one," she said. "Every time I close my eyes, I see Meryt and Tuya's tiny bodies drowning in a lake of blood. They're screaming my name, begging me to help them, but I can do nothing. I'm afraid, and that fear keeps me rooted to the spot as they slip under the surface …" Tears clung to her lashes, spilling down her cheeks as she squeezed her eyes shut.

  Barca moved back to the bed and sat. His hand stroked her back. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to save them."

  "You can't save everyone, Hasdrabal," she said, leaning her head against his shoulder. "You had your hands full that night, as I recall. No, I should have never left them. I try not to imagine what their last minutes were like. Their father lay dead in front of them. Their mother, too. I try not to think about how terrified they were." She sighed and slipped her shift over her head, running her fingers through her hair. "I failed them, and it will haunt me for the rest of my life."

  "There's nothing I can say that would ease your mind. The pain is something time will lessen, if you allow it. I'm proof that rage and guilt aren't simple things to live with."

  "I could never forget them," she said.

  "No. You'll never forget them, or what happened. Just try, as though your soul depends on it, not to let it control you."

  "How…" she began, then stopped. A scream drifted in, a cry of alarm that ended abruptly. Barca shot to his feet. His nostrils flared; he caught the acrid smell of smoke. The Phoenician swore as he grabbed his sword and raced from the tent. Jauharah snatched a knife off the table as she followed in his wake.

  Outside, lurid flames leapt from the supply wagons and from tents on the outskirts of camp. In the ghoulish light, Jauharah saw the silhouettes of horsemen thundering through camp, men wearing the tell-tale robes and turbans of Bedouin. On the ground, a handful of Egyptians struggled to rise, to extricate themselves from the clinging folds of their shelters, only to be cut down by the flashing swords of their attackers. Men screamed in pain and rage.

  "Awake, dogs!" Barca roared. "Awake!"

  They rode in from the northeast, a wedge of half-wild horsemen who trampled tents and slaughtered men as they bore down on the ruins forming the geographic center of the Egyptian camp. Chaos ruled as men, torn from the arms of slumber by Barca's cry, stumbled out of their tents only to be set upon by Bedouin wolves. Arab and Egyptian strained breast to breast, fighting with a primal fury that erased all vestiges of humanity. Men reverted to their animal natures, slashing with knife and sword, tooth and nail. Barca saw a naked Egyptian, his standard-bearer, drag a Bedouin from his horse and kill him even as another rode him down from behind.

  Snarling, Barca slung his sword over his shoulder, snatched a bow from a weapons rack, and strung it on one fluid motion. The Bedouin were overwhelming his men, forcing them back to the ruins. With machine-like efficiency, Barca drew and loosed, sending arrow after arrow into the fray. He saw horses rear, pitching their riders into the dust. Men screamed as bronze-heads slashed into their bellies, their chests, their faces. So tightly were they compacted that the Phoenician's arrows could not miss.

  The timbre of the battle changed as Barca's archery provided a toehold. The Egyptians shook off the effects of surprise and rallied together. A hedge of spears arose, skewering horse and rider alike. Bedouin flung to the ground by their terrified mounts were set upon and slaughtered.

  The stench of spilled blood, the clash and clamor of battle — these things stirred the anger in the pit of Barca's soul. Bare-chested, clad in only a brief kilt, he waded into the fray. Furious cries of "al-Saffah" rose from the throats of the Bedouin, mingling with curses and prayers. The Bloodshedder had come. As a mob, the desert men charged the Phoenician, robes flapping, beards bristling.

  A horseman screamed wordlessly and leapt from the saddle. Barca dropped his bow and caught him in mid-air, slamming him into the ground with bone crunching force. A savage kick from the Phoenician ended the fallen man's struggles. In an instant the other Bedouin were on him. Barca ducked a sword-cut, his left fist stretching the man out senseless, and batted aside a knife-wielding arm that streaked toward his face. His own sword sang from its sheath. Bearded faces rose and fell; swords and knives lashed out only to be knocked aside as Barca scythed through their turbaned ranks.

  The Bedouin fell back in dismay. In that instant, the Egyptians seized the advantage, pouring into the breach Barca had wrought like air in the wake of lightning. They surged past him, sinewy bodies naked, brown hands grasping axe, spear, and sword. Though slow to anger, the men of the Nile did not lack for courage; they fought like men who had little to fear from death.

  Dripping blood, very little of it his own, Barca dropped back and surveyed the dead. With his foot, he flipped a Bedouin corpse over. An arrow had pierced his throat and broken off; the shaft forced his chin up in an almost comical pose. Barca rifled the body, found nothing. His weapons and clothing were of a better quality than what could be expected of a desert raider. Someone had paid this man, and paid him well.

  "Phoenician! "

  Barca glanced up. In the orange glow of the fires, he saw Ahmad and his men approaching. The old Arab gasped for breath. "We came as soon as …"

  Barca did not let him finish. "Son of a bitch!" the Phoenician snarled, back-handing the garrison captain. Ahmad staggered and would have fallen had Barca not snatched him up by the front of his tunic. "Decide who you're loyal to, and decide it now! I want answers! Are these Qainu's Bedouin?"

  Barca's fury took Ahmad's men at unawares. By the time they recovered their wits enough to draw blades, their captain's upraised hand stilled them. Ahmad tore himself free of Barca's grip. He dabbed at the blood oozing from his split lip as he knelt and studied the dead men at his feet. "Aye, these are Zayid's men," he said at length. "I recognize this one by the scar above his eye. Could be they were just after plunder."

  "Don't be a fool, Ahmad! It was plain for all to see that we were heavily armed, yet they attacked regardless. Why? If it's plunder they were after, why not loot one of the outlying caravan camps? No, this is Qainu's doing! "

  Ahmad stood. His shoulders slumped. "What do you want from us?"

  "Loyalty," Barca said. "Tell me what Qainu has planned. We need…"

  Barca's head snapped up. Above the shriek and din of battle, he heard a scream of a different sort. His lips peeled back over his teeth in an expression of bestial rage.

  It was a woman's scream.

  Callisthenes paced the perimeter of his prison, the knife in his hands like an impossible weight. The fury and bravado he had felt upon discovering the weapon had petered out. Despite all he learned from Barca, the
thought of having to kill again left a cold knot of apprehension in his belly. What was he afraid of? Death?

  After Memphis, Callisthenes had sought to approach the dynamics of killing from a philosopher's point of view. Violence, he decided, was a necessary evil; indeed, the gods of Hellas held those capable of dealing death in high regard. Even the afterlife was segregated. Warriors and those who excelled at violence found eternal bliss in Elysium, while the common man faced the grim reality of Tartarus.

  He thought back to the countless afternoons spent in Barca's company learning the intricacies of sword-play. The Phoenician instructed him in the best ways to kill a man, where the arterial points were, how to incapacitate the enemy by targeting his torso and belly. What struck Callisthenes was not the feel of a hilt in his sweat-slick palm, or even the sound of metal grating on metal. No, the thing Callisthenes remembered most was the nonchalance in Barca's voice. He could have been a farmer describing the most economical ways of harvesting grain.

  "I don't kill out of joy or capriciousness," Barca had told him later, as they prepared for Gaza, "but to preserve what I hold dear … my life; the lives of my friends; Egypt. And those I kill are generally deserving of it."

  Slaughter bred arrogance, Callisthenes reckoned. Killers justified it to themselves by painting their foe in the worst possible light; by telling themselves they helped rid the world of another vile soul. It was a skewed sense of justice that Callisthenes just did not possess. Men like Barca saw the world in stark primary colors — black and white, right and wrong — defined by their experiences. They were confident in their own perceptions and as unflinching as granite. For Callisthenes, right and wrong, like the truth, were mutable. Ask a hundred men to describe the same struggle, and you would get a hundred different answers. Which one was the truth?

  There was no easy solution to his situation. He would have to kill again, damn the consequences. His fate and the fate of his friends hung in the balance. Resigned, Callisthenes stopped pacing.

  "Guard!" the Greek roared, battering on the thick cedar door. "Damn you, you impertinent fool!" He hoped Qainu had told them to see to his every desire.

  "What do you want?" a voice grated from the hall beyond. Callisthenes mumbled something. "What?" A key rattled in the lock. The bolt was thrown back. The door opened enough to admit the guard's head and shoulders. A hawkish Bedouin face peered within. "What is it you …"

  Callisthenes moved quicker than he thought possible. He hurled his weight against the door, pinning the guard's shoulders as his hand clamped down on the Bedouin's skull. His knife ripped across the man's throat. Blood gushed over the Greek's fist. He hauled the still-thrashing guard into the room and threw him headlong over the divan. The Bedouin's helmet clashed and clattered; his spear skittered across the tiled floor. Callisthenes risked a glance into the empty hallway, then closed the door and turned back to finish off his victim.

  The Bedouin clutched at the wound in his throat, his fingers trying to stem the tide of blood spurting from his severed arteries. He gurgled like a man drowning, and his voice weakened with every pulse of his racing heart. Callisthenes could only stare as the Bedouin guard — a man he did not know; a man he had no quarrel with save for his choice of loyalties — died. His blood washed over Amphitrite's feet.

  "I'm sorry," he whispered, snatching up the Bedouin's spear. It was a sturdy weapon, a six-foot long shaft capped with a bronze blade the length of the Greek's forearm. It would do. He thrust the knife into his gold-scaled belt and moved to the door, inching it open. The hallway was deserted. A few well-spaced lamps provided succor from the oppressive darkness. Callisthenes exhaled. With a prayer to fleet-footed Hermes, he stepped out into the hallway, pulled the door closed behind him and shot the bolt.

  He crept along quickly, following the path Merodach had sketched on the platter. He descended a flight of stairs and darted into a broad hallway. Callisthenes had no clue how he would deal with Qainu's guards, but he prayed the Arab had gone to slumber and his retinue with him. If that were the case, it would be a small matter to slip out into the courtyard and steal over the wall. If not … well, if not, Callisthenes would do his utmost to earn entrance to the endless feasts of Elysium.

  Tension and fear exaggerated his senses, causing him to notice little details about the palace that he had not had the luxury to study earlier. Flaking plaster, crude reliefs imitating the Egyptian style, lamps and fixtures of hammered copper. It seemed to Callisthenes that the Arabs sought to emulate the art and architecture of the Nile, but with far less aplomb. Even the aromatic cedar he could smell seemed less than clean, barely masking an underlying stench of decay.

  He was nearing the end of the hallway, and the side door leading to the throne room, when a sound made him pause. Voices. His heart leapt into his throat. Callisthenes cast about for a hiding place, then stopped. The voices were not growing closer, only rising in intensity. He was hearing an argument emanating from the throne room, itself.

  He glided closer, listening …

  Jauharah left Barca's side and sprinted across the sand. She could serve no one by cleaving to the Phoenician's shadow; her knife would not sway the fight's outcome in the tiniest degree. At the hospital tents she would be in her element. She darted through the ruins, dodging fallen columns and leaping a low wall, clutching her knife close to her body.

  The sounds of fighting — the screams of rage and agony, the crash and slither of iron on bronze, the moist impact of iron on flesh — echoed beyond the wall of the ruin. She tried not to think of the Egyptian soldiers out there as young men, tried not to recall their laughter, their voices. Soon, they would come broken and bleeding into her care. Some would die; others would pray for death.

  Jauharah rounded the corner and skidded to a halt. Flames erupted from the hospital tents. Men clashed together, heaving this way and that in an obscene dance that would end with a life extinguished. As she watched, Bay, kindly, meticulous Bay, hurled himself on a Bedouin's back, a surgeon's knife flashing in the firelight. The raider fell, his throat slit. Another stepped in and rammed his spear into Bay's chest. Jauharah screamed as the quartermaster was lifted off his feet and slammed to the ground, gurgling through the blood filling his lungs as the Bedouin cruelly twisted the spear.

  At the sound of her voice, a woman's voice, the Bedouin turned. Malice glittered in their dark eyes. Malice and lust. Dread clutched Jauharah's heart with talons of ice.

  Suddenly, she doubted the wisdom of leaving Barca's shadow. Jauharah backed away, then turned and disappeared into the ruins. Like hounds, the Bedouin bayed and gave chase. They had taken only a handful of steps when a squad of Egyptians fell on their flank. The woman was forgotten as spear, knife and sword licked out, driving them back into the crackling flames.

  Jauharah slowed, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She pulled herself over the low wall and stopped. No one followed her. Tears blurred her vision. She turned …

  … and screamed as a raider blind-sided her, lunging from the darkness like a desert spirit. He caught her like a man does a child, his arms wrapping around her, pinning her to his chest. "Come, my sweet lotus flower! " he whispered in her ear, his breath foul.

  Jauharah's shrieks had an altogether different quality as she struggled against the Bedouin, her lithe strength brought to nothing by bands of iron muscle. He chuckled darkly and hurled her to the ground. Jauharah hit hard, her breath whistling from her lungs. Somehow, she kept hold of her knife.

  Light from the distant fires seeped in through chinks in the crumbling walls, striping the darkness with slashes of orange. "Qainu said kill you all," the raider said, grinning. "But he said nothing against taking our sport first!" He drove his sword point-first into the ground and hiked up his robe, tucking the hem into his sword belt. Leering, the Bedouin stalked her, his ugly, goatish body naked from the waist down. Jauharah smelled the reek of smoke and sweat, the stench of horses permeating the Bedouin's frame. She pulled herself to her knees and staggered t
o her feet.

  "Q-Qainu?" she said.

  But the Bedouin offered her nothing more, save a cruel bark of laughter as he threw himself at her. Grimy hands pawed at her breasts, tearing her shift from her shoulders. In that instant, Jauharah remembered the knife in her fist. Snarling, she drove it forward with all the strength in her arm.

  Flesh parted under the keen blade. The Bedouin's howls changed pitch and timbre as her knife slashed up through his groin, emasculating him before continuing deep into the juncture of his inner thigh. He sank to the ground, clutching himself, gobbling at the blood spurting from his lacerated femoral artery. He pushed himself away from her and crawled to where his sword lay.

  Jauharah's world shrank to a pinpoint, a speck dominated by the writhing body at her feet. Her mind's eye no longer saw a Bedouin, but a Greek, an assassin, covered in the blood of children. He tried to rise. "No!" she snarled, throwing herself on his back. Her knife flashed again and again. She had to save them! She …

  When Jauharah looked down the Greek was gone. Instead, she straddled the Bedouin's twisted corpse. The blood-slick hilt of her knife protruded from the shredded flesh of his shoulders. She held her trembling hands up. They were covered in blood, as well. Jauharah spun away, vomiting.

  "Egyptian women are soft!" A figure sat atop the low wall. He dropped to the ground. His silhouette gave Jauharah the impression of a bird of prey; his ripped robes and bloodblasted turban left no doubt that he was Bedouin. He walked closer and leveled a gory scimitar at her breast.

  "Salim was a fool," he said, "but I'll not make the same mistake. Touch that knife and I'll split you in two, girl!"

  Fear hammered through her brain as she sought a way out, some kind of edge over the lean desert fighter. The other Bedouin, Salim, had been blinded by lust; this one was different. This one had lusts no woman could slake. She pushed herself away from him, passing through a shaft of light.