Farmer, Philip Jose – Riverworld 06 – ( Shorts) Tales of Riverworld

the flames as they ran. The liquid fire dripped between lengths of kiltcloth. In moments, the wall itself began to burn.

Some of the black men had the courage and wit to stick to their posts. They poured buckets of water onto the burgeoning flames. The Basileus smiled at their cries of dismay, for the fire refused to go out. It was not the precise recipe the Rhomaioi had used in Constantinople; no one on this strange new world had yet found petroleum oozing up from between the rocks. But dragonfish oil made a good enough substitute. Mixed with naphtha, sulfur, and a few other ingredients so secret the engineer who knew them refused to name them even for Alexios, the oil made a hellbrew that burned until it consumed itself or until it was smothered with sand.

The Bornu, though, were ignorant of that trick and had no time to learn it. More and more of them scrambled or jumped off the wall as the flames spread. The Rhomaioi cheered the thick black smoke mounting to the sky.

Alexios gave new orders to the musicians. Their sharp notes pierced the din. The men of New Constantinople obediently formed themselves into a wedge-shaped formation. Here were soldiers you could do something with, Alexios thought—they were brave and obedient at the same time.

A section of the wall fell over with a rending crash. Sparks flew upward. The flutes screamed. Crying Alexios’s name and “Christ with us,” the Rhomaioi surged into the town.

Fighting raged fierce for a few minutes. Then the Bornu began to break and to stream toward the citadel. Alexios caught Isaac’s eye. They both grinned. If the town wall, draped with kiltcloth, had burned, what a

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Harry Tlirtledove

TWO THIEVES

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merry bonfire Musa ar-Rahman’s palace would make. The Bornu capital was as good as theirs.

Some of the black men saw that, too. A detachment of perhaps fifty smashed headlong into Alexios’s army, struggling desperately to force the men from New Constantinople outside the walls once more. At the head of the detachment was a hook-nosed man with full kiltcloth armor and gleaming copper rings in both ears and one nostril. Such a display of wealth could belong only to Musa.

The Sultan spied Alexios at the same instant Alexios recognized him. “To the death between us!” he shouted in Arabic. “Let the winner rule both folk!”

Alexios advanced on him. But when Musa ar-Rahman charged into what he thought was single combat, Isaac Komnenos and three other Rhomaioi also assailed him. Alexios crushed the Sultan’s skull with his club, but was never sure afterward if that was the mortal blow.

The Bornu wailed in horror at the treachery. Alexios remained unfazed. Like the Prankish barbarians whose crusade he’d had to deflect, they were foolish enough to think war was about honor. War was about winning, nothing more.

Their ruler’s death took the heart out of the black men. Soon screaming women impeded the army of New Constantinople more than the soldiery of Bornu. Men raised their hands and gave up their grails in token of surrender. “Keep as many alive as you can!” Alexios shouted. “If they die, we lose the food and other good things controlling them would give us.”

Musa had been an exception to that rule. He was too cunning, too dangerous to keep around as a grail slave— better that he be reborn somewhere far from New

Constantinople and make trouble there. Mutilating him every few months was another alternative, but Alexios didn’t care for it. He had his own notions of honor, and cruelty without cause was not part of them.

Before long, only the Sultan’s palace still held out against the Rhomaioi. Alexios sent an Arabic-speaking herald forward with a message: “Yield your weapons and your grails and you will not be badly treated. Otherwise, we will use liquid fire against you. You may be born again afterward, but your deaths will be slow and hideous. Decide quickly, or we will use it anyhow.”

He waited. Just as he was about to order the engineers forward, the palace doorway opened. Dejected black men began filing out. They threw their bows and spears and clubs in a pile to the right of the doorway. The pile became mountainously high. The weapons were as good as anything the Rhomaioi used. Alexios decided to store them against future need.

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