Free The Gate of Fire by Thomas Harlan

tried to shout, but there was no breath left in his body.
    Do you make obeisance to Him, who made all that is? Do you render Him respect? Come to Him, and listen, and know His will in all things.
    The man whimpered, his hands twitching uncontrollably.
    Do you see that there is evil in the world? Evil that defies the Lord of the World, that stains His perfect creation?
    An image blossomed in the man's mind, horribly real and as fresh as the day he had first seen it. The man's body jerked with spasms.
    A dark shape moved on a plain of sandy stones. A great host of men, their spears glittering in the morning light, pressed about the walls of a strong place. The man, clad in bright armor, stood at the summit of a great tower of ashlar stone and fitted granite blocks. The dark shape raised a fist, and the air shook with the roar of unheard words. The man on the tower shouted defiance back into that tremendous sound. A whirl of stones and dust and the bones of the dead skittered across the plain before the army. It grew and grew, until it loomed over the rampart and the man in the tower knew fear. A shape blurred out of the air, enormous and given an impossible outline. The earth shook at its step. The man screamed at his soldiers to flee, to abandon the tower. It was too late. The thing in the air roared and swung down its fist. Stone blocks taller than a man shattered like porcelain under the blow. The tower toppled to one side, and the man threw himself off, out into the air. Wind rushed past, whipping his hair and then there was a stunning blow as he hit the street. The earth shook again, and the man looked up, seeing the whole tower sliding toward him.
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    The man sobbed, his body aching with pain at the memory that had welled up in his mind.
    Act! Submit to the will of your Lord and strive against this, or all your race will be the playthings of hidden powers. Act! You know what must be done.
    The man shuddered, his entire body twitching furiously, then he lay still on the broad surface of the great boulder that crowned the mountaintop. After a moment the wind rose again, rattling the leaves of the thornbushes and blowing sand and grit across him.

CHAPTER FIVE
The Harbor of Phospherion, Constantinople
    "To the left," the centurion's whisper drifted down the line of men. Nicholas leaned out a little, trying to see the head of the line in the pressing darkness. There was the dim glow of a shuttered lantern up ahead and the liquid gleam of its tiny light on water below his feet. White breath puffed from Nick's mouth, and he drew the heavy woolen cloak around his shoulders a little tighter. The man in front of him moved, the boards of the dock creaking under his feet, and Nicholas shuffled ahead as well. He felt awkward and heavy in the thick cork-filled armor. He was used to a shirt of close-linked mail, heavy and snug against his chest and on his shoulders. This thick padding made him feel enormous and stiff.
    Another centurion, this one with the Poseidon-blaze of the Imperial fleet on his shoulder, moved past him, along the line of men. He carried another lantern and moved quietly down the gangway at the end of the dock. Above him the light briefly illuminated the overhanging oar galleries of the three-banked galley—a dromon to the Southerners—that they were boarding. Nicholas shivered again, feeling a chill breeze gust up off the waters of Propontis. All around him the docks of the military harbor, nestled under the walls of the great city, were filled with the muted noise of thousands of men moving quietly.
    Nicholas hurried across the gangway when his time came, nervous at the darkness, but once his feet touched the subtly tilting deck of the great oared galley, his heart calmed. Here, on the deck of a fighting ship again for the first time in nearly four years, fear and doubt faded away. He stepped to the side and looked around. The ninety-foot length of the warship was filling up with legionnaires. Great bulwarks