The throne room was silent. The King rested his hands on the arms of his throne, and the torchlight caught the gold cuneiform stitched across his blue robes. "A force of roughly four hundred soldiers has taken positions along the southern wall. They carry Greek banners and wear Greek armor. According to my scouts, they have not yet attacked."
"Not yet," Samira repeated quietly.
"They're spreading along the base of the wall. They're looking at it." Belshazzar's amber eyes moved across the room. "Searching for weak points, or wanting us to believe they are."
Saijew stepped forward. "It's a test."
The King studied him. "You sound certain."
"Two Greek soldiers hit my recruits on the road, and neither of them used everything they had." Saijew's voice was low and steady. "If they had, I'd have fewer recruits. They held back and watched. Now they've come back with an army, and I would bet my rank they're still holding back."
"That's a bad kind of test," Samira muttered.
"A test can still kill," Naram-Sin said.
Nobody argued. Ashur shifted his tower shield on his back, and Tallia's fingers moved over her beads. Across the room, Poison leaned toward Abraham and whispered, "They want to see what we do."
"Everyone wants to see what we do," Abraham whispered back. "That's the problem."
Belshazzar straightened. "Then we show them." He turned to Ashur. "You will hold the southern wall."
Ashur frowned. "I thought you wanted me here."
"I wanted you to hear it. Now go." The King's tone didn't change. "Your shield has stopped armies before. Stop this one."
Ashur grunted. "Understood."
"Tallia, the inner gate. If anything breaks through, I want it stopped before it reaches the streets." Tallia bowed her head and said nothing. "Naram-Sin, take the mobile guard and stay behind the wall. If Ashur needs relief, you go. Samira, you carry orders between all of them. Nothing moves without you knowing."
Samira grinned. "Finally, something I'm good at."
"And the Egyptians." Belshazzar looked at Saijew. "They stay with you, near the palace, as a reserve. They fight only if you say they fight."
"They'll fight when I say," Saijew said, glancing at the recruits.
"We're just going to stand here?" Poison asked, not quite quietly enough.
"You're going to stay where I put you." Saijew didn't look at him. "That's what a reserve does."
Ren stepped forward, his arms tight across his chest. "I can fight. I awakened."
"You almost died on that bridge."
"I'm better than I was."
"That's why you'll be alive when I need you." Saijew's voice softened a little. "I'm not saying no, Ren. I'm saying not yet."
Ren stared at him for a moment, then stepped back. His jaw was tight, but he didn't argue.
Valentina looked sideways. Magnolia was standing very still next to her, his hands loose at his sides. He hadn't said a word since they walked in. "Captain?" she said quietly.
"If we're told to stay, we stay," Magnolia said. He kept his eyes on the King. "Until someone needs us."
Valentina watched him for a second. Then she nodded.
•••
On the dry plains south of Babylon, four hundred Greek soldiers stood in neat ranks under the morning sun.
They had spread out along the base of the great wall in companies of fifty, each one holding a position about two hundred yards from the stones. They weren't marching, and they weren't shouting. They just stood there with their shields grounded and their crimson cloaks stirring in the wind, close enough to be seen by every guard on the wall.
Alexzander stood on a low ridge overlooking the formation with his axe resting on his shoulder. Cyclone sat on a flat rock next to him, tossing a dagger in the air and catching it.
"They've doubled the guards," Cyclone said. "Twice as many as yesterday."
"Three times," Alexzander said. "Look at the third tower."
Cyclone squinted. "Archers. A lot of them."
"They're nervous. That's good." Alexzander watched a figure moving along the wall, a broad man in blue-and-bronze armor who walked like he carried the whole city on his back. "That one is the commander."
"Big," Cyclone said.
"Very. Watch how he places his soldiers. He doesn't want to win. He wants everyone to survive." Alexzander's eyes narrowed. "That makes him harder to fight."
Cyclone caught his dagger and glanced toward the sky. "Think the woman made it?"
Alexzander was silent for a moment. "Celina took an axe for that boy. If she's the same woman I think she is, she'd walk out of her own funeral."
"She was Veil," Cyclone said, quieter now. "It was obvious."
"Yes." Alexzander lowered his axe. "That's a problem for another day."
A soft rustle came from the rocks above them, and both men turned. The young hunter was crouched on an outcrop about twenty feet higher than the ridge, his dark green cloak pulled around his shoulders. He hadn't made a sound getting there. A hawk sat on his forearm, and he was running one finger lightly along its feathers.
"Third tower, eight archers," he said without looking at them. "Second tower, six. The gate below them has two guards at the entrance and a third who keeps glancing at the man in the heavy armor." He paused. "He's the one they trust."
Cyclone blinked. "How long have you been up there?"
"Since before you sat down."
"I didn't hear you."
"I know."
Alexzander almost smiled. "Can you tell how they'll move?"
"Not yet." The hunter's golden eyes were fixed on the wall. "Give me time. The longer I watch, the more I know." The hawk lifted off his arm and glided toward the city. "They're not afraid of us. They're afraid of getting it wrong."
"That's smart," Alexzander said.
"That's a hunter's fear." The young man looked down at him for the first time. "I told you I'd decide where I stand. I'm standing here."
"That's fine."
"And I won't shoot anyone who isn't holding a weapon."
"I wouldn't ask you to."
The hunter nodded and turned back to the wall. Cyclone leaned over and whispered, "He's still unsettling."
"He's useful," Alexzander said.
•••
Ashur reached the southern wall in minutes.
He didn't run. He walked quickly up the stone stairs, one hand on the rail and Etemenanki's weight settling heavily across his back, and the guards on the battlements stood straighter as he passed. Somewhere below, the Greeks were lined up in neat rows, and he could feel them watching.
"Report," he said.
A young captain saluted. "Four hundred soldiers, sir. They haven't moved in an hour."
"Archers?"
"Third and second towers are full. The gate has the usual guard."
Ashur looked down at the plain. The Greek soldiers stood in perfect formation, and on a ridge in the distance he saw two figures, one with an axe on his shoulder. He didn't know their names. He only knew that men who held still like that were waiting for something.
"Double the shields on the gate," he said. "Pull the archers back from the edge. Nobody shoots until I say so."
The captain blinked. "Sir, they might…"
"If they wanted to kill us, they would have already." Ashur slid the enormous tower shield off his back and planted it against the stones in front of him. It was nearly as tall as he was, its surface engraved with protective cuneiform, and the sound of it hitting the wall echoed down the battlements. "They're asking a question. I don't mean to give them the answer they want."
The soldiers around him straightened. Ashur stood behind his shield and watched the plain, patient as a mountain.
Inside the gate, Tallia took her place at the inner arch. She didn't carry a weapon. She stood with her hands wrapped in faded linen and her eyes closed, counting breaths on her beads, as the guards around her whispered to each other about the quiet woman who didn't need a sword.
•••
At the signal, the first Greek company moved.
It wasn't a charge. Fifty soldiers lifted their shields and began to march steadily across the plain, and the sound of their boots rolled across the dry ground like distant thunder. Halfway to the wall, they stopped and raised their spears, and then every shield in the front rank hit the ground at the same moment.
CRACK.
Along the battlements, Babylonian guards gripped their weapons. Ashur didn't move.
On the ridge, Cyclone rolled his shoulders. "Can I go?"
"Not yet," Alexzander said.
"I'm bored."
"You're always bored." Alexzander watched the first company hold its line. "I want to see how they respond to a threat that isn't a threat. Whether they fire. Whether they panic."
The hunter spoke from his outcrop without lowering his gaze. "They won't fire. The big one hasn't given the order."
"Then we push."
Alexzander raised his axe, and the crimson markings along its blade flickered with a faint red light. Below him, four hundred soldiers shifted their grip. A second company began to advance, then a third, spreading out in a line that curved toward the wall like the edge of a blade.
"Send the first wave," he said.
A horn sounded across the plains.
•••
In the throne room, a messenger burst through the doors and dropped to one knee, gasping.
"My King! They've begun. The Greeks are advancing on the southern wall in three companies, and the commander says they are not breaking formation."
Belshazzar rose from his throne. The room had gone completely still. Samira's hand went to her daggers, Naram-Sin lifted Mashkan from his shoulder, and Tallia's fingers closed around her beads.
Saijew turned to the recruits. His face was calm, but his eyes were hard. "Stay together. Stay close. Be ready to move when I say."
Magnolia looked at Valentina, then at Emma and the others. Ren was staring at the doors, his hand resting on his sword. Poison had pulled out a vial. Luna was whispering something to Sofia.
"We're ready," Valentina said.
Outside, the bell began to ring again.
The bell was still ringing when Belshazzar raised one hand.
"Go," he told the guards. "All of you. Every minute you stand in this room is a minute Greece has on my wall."
Samira bowed and ran. Naram-Sin followed with Mashkan on his shoulder, and Tallia slipped out behind them without a sound. The rest of the Babylonian guards poured out of the side doors in disciplined lines, and within moments the throne room had emptied. Only the King remained on his throne, with Saijew, the twelve Egyptian recruits, and four royal guards standing near the walls.
The room felt very large after that.
Poison was the first to speak. "So we really are just standing here."
"Yes," Saijew said.
"For how long?"
"Until I say otherwise."
Poison opened his mouth to complain, and the floor shook.
It wasn't a large sound, just a deep, hollow boom that rolled through the palace walls from somewhere near the front. Dust drifted from the ceiling. The four royal guards turned toward the great doors, and Saijew's hand moved to the glove at his belt.
"That was the gate," Abraham said quietly.
A second sound followed it. Shouting, then the clash of metal, then a sudden silence that was somehow worse. The recruits stared at the doors. Then the doors burst open.
Twelve soldiers in bronze armor and crimson cloaks poured into the throne room with their swords drawn.
They had gotten through. Somewhere behind them, a small hole had been smashed into the palace's front gate. They had slipped through it while the guards were looking at the southern wall, past the men who should have stopped them, and now they were running straight for the throne. The royal guards moved to intercept, but there were only four of them, and the soldiers kept coming.
Saijew stepped forward, and then he stopped.
He looked at Valentina. She was standing at the front of Squad One with her spear in one hand and her shield on her arm, and she hadn't moved. She was waiting. Her eyes went to Saijew, then to Magnolia beside her.
Magnolia looked at the soldiers, then at her. He gave a small nod.
Valentina looked back at Saijew, and the General nodded as well.
She stepped forward.
Saijew vanished. One second he was standing beside the throne, and the next he was among the soldiers, his fist slamming into the nearest man's chest and sending him sprawling across the marble. Another soldier swung at him, and Saijew was gone again, appearing behind him with a strike to the back of the neck. The man dropped.
Valentina reached out with her free hand, and the water in the stone basin beside the throne rose into the air. It twisted into a thin, compressed bullet and shot across the room, hitting a soldier's sword arm hard enough to snap the weapon out of his grip. She pulled more water from the pipes in the walls, and a thin sheet of it spread across the floor beneath the charging soldiers' boots. Three of them slipped at once. Valentina moved in with her spear, using the butt of it to knock a man's helmet sideways, and her shield caught a blade that came down at her head.
"Left," Saijew said calmly.
Valentina turned. A soldier was lunging at her from the side, and she swept his legs out from under him with the shaft of her spear. He hit the wet floor and slid. She stepped over him and drove her shield into the chest of another.
It lasted about half a minute.
When it was over, twelve Greek soldiers lay scattered across the throne room floor, groaning and unconscious, and the marble was slick with spilled water. Saijew stood in the middle of them, barely breathing hard. Valentina stood a few steps away with her spear lowered, her chest rising and falling.
The room was silent.
Belshazzar hadn't moved from his throne. His amber eyes moved slowly across the fallen soldiers, then to Valentina, then to Saijew. "You allowed a child to fight beside you," he said. It wasn't an accusation.
"She asked permission with her eyes before she stepped in," Saijew answered. "That's more than most of my soldiers do." He glanced at Valentina. "Good work."
Valentina nodded stiffly, trying to hide her smile. "Thank you, General."
•••
The reactions came all at once.
Poison let out a low whistle. "Did you see that?"
"Everyone saw it," Matthew said, rubbing his chin. He was staring at the water still spreading across the floor. "She used the room. She didn't bring her own water. She took it from the basin and the pipes."
"I only stepped in because I was allowed to," Valentina said. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and glanced at Magnolia. "You nodded first."
"You didn't need me to," Magnolia said. He was smiling, and his eyes were bright. "You'd have done fine either way."
"That's not the point. It's not my call."
"It's your call when it's your fight." Magnolia looked at the unconscious soldiers. "You were really good."
Valentina's cheeks turned slightly red, and she looked away. Emma, standing a step behind Magnolia, was staring at the water with her hands clasped tightly together, and Amelia was already kneeling beside one of the fallen soldiers, checking his breathing.
"They're alive," Amelia said. "Just knocked out."
"They were never meant to reach the King," Saijew said.
Everyone turned. Saijew was standing over one of the soldiers, studying the crack in his breastplate. His expression had gone cold. "Twelve men. No siege weapons, no support, no way to hold the room. This was a message, not an assault." He straightened. "They wanted to see how fast we'd react."
"And how we'd react," Abraham said quietly.
"Yes."
Belshazzar rose from his throne. "Then they have their answer."
Ren hadn't said a word since the fight ended. He stood near the back of the room with his arms crossed, watching Valentina. His jaw was tight, and his blue and golden eyes were narrowed. He had seen the two of them move, and he had seen the moment before, when Valentina waited for permission and Saijew gave it. They had been told to stay put. They had been told they were a reserve.
Not yet, he thought. That's what he said. Not yet.
He looked around the room. Everyone was watching the soldiers, or Valentina, or the King. Nobody was looking at the doors.
…