A Burning Sea by Theodore Brun (i am reading a book txt) 📕

‘Why don’t the Byzantines do something?’ Erlan couldn’t understand it. Hardly a spear’s throw below them, standing on the towers spaced along the sea walls, was an array of machines built for the city’s defence. Yet they all remained still. And the hundreds of Byzantine soldiers manning the parapets merely looked on at their enemy.

‘Perhaps they’re afraid,’ suggested Gerutha. ‘Or resigned to their fate.’

Lilla leaned against the stone balustrade, her gaze intent on the scene below. ‘They’re not afraid. The emperor knows what he’s doing.’

‘I hope you’re right. Look.’ Erlan pointed south. ‘There’s the last of them.’ The rearguard of the fleet was another two lines of war-galleys labouring their way into the mouth of the Bosporus.

‘That’s well over a thousand ships,’ said Lilla. ‘Maybe two.’

‘Ymir’s blood!’ Erlan snarled. ‘And a hundred thousand warriors to the west, you say?’ He seized Lilla’s hand. ‘We should leave here, Lilla. Now, while we can.’

‘No.’ Her jaw muscles stiffened in that obstinate way of hers. ‘I didn’t come this far to leave with nothing.’

‘You haven’t left with nothing. You have me.’

‘Can one man win a war?’ She looked at him, and for the first time he saw a hardness in her eyes he didn’t recognize.

‘The wind’s dying, look,’ said Gerutha. ‘See the banners on the wall.’

She was right. After fluttering all morning, the long trails of silk, each blazoned with the empire’s double-headed eagle, now hung limp as pelts on their poles.

Below, almost level with them now, the procession of sails slowed, as if the sea had turned to tar. The waves settled to a glassy sheen. The lighter ships took to their oars and set about rowing themselves out of the calm, although it was heavy going against the stream. They slowed even more when a breeze picked up from the north, licking the limp banners back into life.

Something else caught Erlan’s eye. A little to the north, a small flotilla of rowing craft nosed out from behind the city promontory. Each boat was a third of the size of the great Arab war-galleys languishing against stream and now wind; each with no more than forty oars at work, but they moved across the ruffled waters with surprising speed.

The rest of the Arab fleet had all but abandoned its rearguard, although what damage the smaller Byzantine craft could do to those monsters, Erlan couldn’t imagine. Even so, he saw the Arab marines on board scatter. It looked a lot like panic.

‘What’s happening?’ asked Gerutha.

The little Byzantine ships drove forward, the tempo of their oars increasing while the wooden monsters whaled ahead of them.

‘This is madness,’ Erlan said. ‘They’ll be smashed into kindling.’

‘Just watch.’ Lilla’s gaze was welded to the hardy little boats. The galleys were banking round to meet these Byzantine upstarts. Erlan could see Arab marines now lining the gunwales, their spear-tips catching the light of the morning sun.

A trumpet blast rippled down the Byzantine line and at the signal a jet of flame suddenly shot out from the bows of the lead ship. This was quickly followed by the others, liquid fire arcing through the air, dousing the war-ships’ broadsides like paint. Erlan was astonished. The flame-jets roared again, fierce as the fire-breathing worms of old, spraying death and terror over the floundering Arab galleys.

At once flames raced up the sides of the ships, catching at the rigging and buffeting sails. The Byzantine fire-ships moved in closer, now raining their deadly streams onto the ranks of Arab sailors.

The screaming started.

Hundreds of voices in one soul-rending cry, wailing for mercy or respite. But there was none to be had. The pitiless fire clung to their clothes, their armour, their weapons, swirling about them in a hot maelstrom, devouring everything in its blind hunger.

Men hurled themselves into the sea, human torches blazing through the smoke, but even the water offered no escape. The flames burned on, inextinguishable, dragging them under to a hideous death below the waves.

The sound of the furnace came swirling on the wind, mingled with the triumphant yells of the Byzantine crews and their countrymen cheering from the walls. With the noise came the smell – that sick-sweet stench of burning flesh and something else, something stronger than woodsmoke, the sharp stink of whatever dark concoction fuelled those terrifying tongues of fire.

It was horrifying. . . and yet he could not look away. He felt Lilla’s long light fingers slip into his hand. ‘Do you see it, my love?’ he heard her murmur. ‘There. That’s the edge that we need.’

Words that made his blood run cold.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Abdal-Battal raised the goblet to his lips.

The man drinks wine at least, thought Katāros. He knew there were some among Prince Maslama’s host who refused even that. Warrior-monks. Some even used to be Christians, he had heard. Ascetics, no doubt bored by their stylites or hermit caves, who had heeded the call of the mullahs in the Cilician wastelands and come to pluck the ripe fruit of Constantine’s city to lay upon the altar of their austere god.

Except they had not found the fruit quite ready for plucking.

‘I congratulate you on your victory, Your Majesty,’ the envoy said to the emperor in his sharp nasal voice. ‘Your little fire show will surely hearten your people.’

‘No doubt.’ A subtle smile played around the emperor’s lips.

‘That is, of course, until they consider that our fleet numbers a hundred times what your fire destroyed this morning. But when the full might of our forces fall on this city, it will be flattened like a rivet under a hammer-blow.’

‘You paint a vivid picture, Abdal-Battal.’

‘You are cut off. No help is coming. God has abandoned you. If you continue to resist, your people face only two outcomes. Starvation. Or slaughter.’

‘My people are no fools, Lord Battal. Today they saw that we can resist if we choose to. Morale is high.’

So the exchange went on. Katāros listened while the envoy did his best to impress on the emperor what