He screamed then, a long loud bellowing cry, feeling a killing rage burn cold inside him.

‘Makes you feel sort of homesick, don’t it, lad?’ Einar yelled, laughing like a man who’d lost his reason. And together, they surged on into the frenzied flood.

Below him, the fighting was descending into savagery. Katāros couldn’t imagine any man coming out of that deadly tempest alive. Yet still some few Arabs ran on, and fewer still Byzantines ran amongst them, jackals among lions.

More Byzantine troops were spilling out of a postern gate further north into the gap between the walls. Katāros swore under his breath, then swore again when he saw another postern to the south disgorging yet more troops on the raiders’ southern flank.

Time was running out.

Prince Maslama’s assault on the outer gate had intensified. Flaming missiles landed with ever-increasing accuracy on the outer gatehouses, the clay pots shattering in showers of flesh-melting terror. Despite the carnage on the walkways, Byzantine reinforcements were still bravely throwing themselves into the skirmish. Katāros felt his pulse racing under his pale skin. Such mulish obduracy would all be for nothing once the caliph’s host was released into the gap between the walls.

The rest of the emperor’s retinue were all pressed up against the stone rampart, craning their necks to see. The Mujahideen were at the outer gate now, cutting down the first of the defenders on the inside. They had reached their objective. Now they just had to take it. Meanwhile, the defenders on the inner wall had their missiles trained on the killing ground between the walls now, felling Arab and Byzantine alike in their desperation to thwart the raiders. Katāros saw a man in a white tunic laying about him with a long sword. And next to him, another with a long-headed axe. Not a conventional Byzantine weapon. The first man was wounded, and limping. . . yet he was dealing death to each spearman he hunted down with lethal precision.

Recognition broke suddenly in the eunuch’s mind like a beam of light: Katāros knew that man.

He knew him. And damned him to hell.

Erlan was too late.

There were still twenty Arabs between him and the gate. His shield was flapping like a broken wing. He flung it away and snatched a javelin from the gore-slick roadway as a black-helmed swordsman turned to meet him. Beyond him was another Arab, a huge black-clad beast with an enormous axe, hacking great shivers of wood out of the gate. Erlan knew he’d have it open soon but the swordsman blocked his way. Their blades rang, his bones jarred to the marrow, the Arab’s eyes flared, curved steel whipped across his thigh. Erlan screamed in pain, spraying spittle in his enemy’s face, feeling the strength leak from his limb as he fell to his knee. The Arab slashed down his blade, expecting to finish him, but Erlan threw himself forward, driving Wrathling’s pommel into the man’s groin. The Arab buckled, the javelin slid through Erlan’s fingers, he jabbed upwards, and the point went through the man’s throat like a street vendor’s skewer. The man choked, coughed blood into Erlan’s face, blinding him, then fell to the ground. For a second Erlan couldn’t see.