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.’