The moon was a sliver of itself perched in the sky, gleaming off the surface of distant waters, illuminating crests of hills that dotted the horizon. The campfires of the Muslims crackled in the night, and the men huddled around them drowned out the night's noises with their murmurs of conversation.

I yanked the hair of the severed head with my fingers and tread carefully in the shadow of Heliopolis' walls. There was torch lit atop the gate, and a sharp cry followed my steady approach to the looming doors, heavily studded with iron and bronze.

'Amr ibn al-'Aas was reluctant to follow through with this plan. Perhaps he thought I would betray them to the Romans. But when Zubayr heard of it, I was immediately dispatched. It was the key to Heliopolis, and in the process, Egypt.

And Mundhir.

I heard the clatter and creaking of bows above. I was beginning to regret volunteering for this. I raised both hands as a gesture of goodwill, and in the process further illuminating the severed head I clutched.

"I come bearing good news," I called out to them in Greek. "I bring the end of the invaders."

There was a brief pause as no doubt my knowledge of the Greek tongue had caught the defenders by surprise. Yet, thankfully, there was not an arrow let loose either. I took a deep breath and wished I was yet a pagan to take comfort in an idol or something of substance. Muslims did not allow idolatry, and I was finding it difficult to find such comfort in the mere abstract thought of Allah.

"Name yourself," a man finally responded from above.

I shuffled uncomfortably. "My name is Hanthalah, of the Ghassanids. I am of the auxiliary."

"You are of Babylon?"

"Pelusium."

"How is it you have come here?"

"I was captured by the Muslims at the siege of Pelusium," I replied. "I feigned conversion and bided my time, waiting for the opportunity to defect."

"And you chose now?"

"I would speak to the commander, if you please."

"You speak to me."

"I chose now because their demise is nigh."

"How is that?"

My breathing was ragged, and I started doubting this damned plan. I contemplated darting away from the gate and returning to the relative safety of the camp. I needed to live to fight another day. To find Mundhir.

Instead, I hefted the head and spoke.

"Their commander is dead."

________________________

I was not allowed inside the city proper. Instead, I was seated on the ramparts, with the flickering torchlight and the bristling of a dozen defenders that had been eager to riddle me with a flurry of arrows only moments before. Their hostile attitude had not evaporated, however. I was, after all, a barbarian in their eyes.

I waited a long while there, suffering the accusing gazes of the Roman soldiers. Instead of meeting their gazes, I studied the city beyond. It seemed Heliopolis was bereft of any citizens at this hour; I remembered Martha speaking of this Sun City, the meaning of the Greek word Heliopolis.

It was a place once revered as a holy place in olden times, she'd claimed, when the Egyptian people were subject not to Greeks nor Romans, but their own gods.

It was certainly not as impressive as Alexandria or Damascus. There was the usual ornate churches visible, ringed with a swarm of equally elaborate monasteries. There was a pillared palace cresting a hill at the far side of the city with a red-tiled roof, and another on the other side of the city with a dome perched atop. Otherwise nothing caught the eye in Heliopolis.

Moments later, a stern looking man with greying temples and billowing cloak emerged from the stairway leading to the fighting platform and faced me with a fiery gaze to rival that of ibn al-'Aas.

"You are an auxiliary man, barbarian?" he demanded without greeting. He hefted the head I offered his men. "And this is the man they call Ambros? The barbarian in command of these villains?"

"The very one."

He spat at my feet. "And why should I believe the word of a barbarian, whose people have brought nothing but death and destruction to me and mine?"

He inched threateningly closer to me, but I did not budge. We were close enough to kiss now. I did not waver.

"Because you have naught to lose," I replied. "Because there are hordes of these barbarians threatening not one, but two major Roman strongholds in this vicinity, and thousands more coming to their aid from the east."

"They will be stopped. By Roman blades."

"As you stopped them in the Levant and in other Egyptian strongholds?"

Several men on the rampart unsheathed their swords, taking my words a slight.

"You need not be offended by my words," I addressed them, still meeting the gaze of the Roman commander, never flinching away from his eyes. "I merely offer guidance and valuable intelligence of the enemy's situation."

The man hefted the head again. "What evidence do you bear that this is the head of who you claim it to be?"

"None but my word," I replied. "An obviously worthless thing, as you and I know. But, again, you have naught to lose, and all to gain."

I thought of my children, then. I had never been encumbered by their presence before. I thought of young 'Abd al-Ka'aba, destined to live among the nomads and blossom into a hardened warrior. I thought of 'Abdullah, tiny and frail, emerging from his mother's womb sickly and weak.

I thought of robust Umaymah and her endearing giggle. My daughter.

I even thought of my mother, rotting away in a distant shack.

I thought of Sumayya, the woman I was only just forming a genuine marital bond with; I thought of Ruqayya, the fruit of our union that would live without meeting her father even once.

Ruqayya, however, was spared that fate. The officer extended an arm.

"Theodore," he introduced himself. I clasped his outstretched arm in a firm grip.

"Hanthalah."

And the trap was sprung.

___________________________

The ploy of offering Amr's supposed head was intended to gain the trust of the Romans. In hindsight, it seems a flimsy strategy built on baseless hopes and wishful thinking. Zubayr had nothing to lose either, with setting this plan. I was disposable.

I was basing my success on an intimate knowledge of the Roman mind. Their arrogance. They believed themselves the civilized people of the world. Anyone beyond the borders of Empire was less than. A barbarian. Easily quashed beneath the might of Constantinople, with the grace of Christ.

The death of the barbarian commander only reaffirmed their beliefs.

Beliefs. Whether they are religious or social. They are odd things, indeed. They cloud our judgement. They blind us to the truth we see unraveling before us. Perhaps there is no objective narrative, no...true truth, dare I say. We see what we want to see. We believe what confirms our already existing beliefs.

The human mind is truly a flimsy thing.

"They are not yet aware their commander is dead?" this Theodore asked, his eyes fixed on the feasting Muslims behind me. He was smirking, his eyes hungry and lustful.

"Not yet," I replied. "We were alone in the tent when I managed to slip free of my bonds and hack him to death. No one saw me leave. I'm sure of it."

"They will discover the event during the dawn, perhaps, no sooner," Theodore decided. "Their entire camp will fall into disarray."

"Of course," I was inclined to agree with anything he would say.

"These barbarians are undisciplined, unaccustomed to the Roman way. Their loyalties will evaporate once they are left without supervision, like petty children. They will fall to fighting among themselves once more, as they have done for centuries as disparate tribes."

I yearned to stab the fucker in the throat. Instead, I smiled eagerly and nodded.

"I would see the barbarian swept from these lands," Theodore raised his voice. "We outnumber the foe. Come morning, I will smite the infidel. In the name of our Lord and savior."

"Amen!" his soldiers called out in unison.

I was perplexed at the decision but played along all the same.

Thank Hub-no, Allah, I thought. Allah.

____________________________

I was told to stay within city walls. Theodore arrayed his men outside the gate, filed in neat ranks; skirmishers and archers at the front, to screen the charge. Spearmen formed the bulk of the main body of infantrymen in the center and two small contingents of cavalry flanked them to either side.

Dawn had come and gone, but the Muslim camp was not in a state of disarray. 'Amr ibn al-'Aas was well and alive, and he organized his own troops in a similar formation. The severed head belonged to a fallen Muslim warrior who succumbed to dysentery.

It would be a pitched battle for Heliopolis now. We had lured the enemy out of the comfort of their walls.

I watched from the fighting platforms of Heliopolis as the Romans initiated the fighting. Theodore must have realized the ploy, but it was far too late now. He might have stood a chance had he stayed within his walls, but his delusions of grandeur and superiority had gotten the better of him.

The two bodies crashed against one another as the Romans charged headfirst, the screams and bellows of clashing troops distant. Great clouds of dust formed below, rising high in the air like a tempest or a threatening sandstorm.

But I noticed another, greater cloud forming to the west of the battlefield, near a hill. A hidden cavalry regiment, emerging from behind that part of the terrain.

I smiled.

I may have taken a dislike to ibn al-'Aas, but he was a man that was living up to his reputation.

A horse whinnied below. It was tethered to something near the gate. I climbed the battlements and hopped off the fighting platform, landing with my knees folded and a jarring sensation. Shocks of pain rippled up my feet and ankles as I steadied myself beneath the city walls, but I paid them no heed.

I set the horse loose and hopped onto its unsaddled, bare back.

Truth be told, it is far more enjoyable riding a horse without a saddle.

I unsheathed my sword, the curved Persian blade, waved it in the air and spurred my mount forward, to spill some Roman blood.

"Allahu Akbar!" I bellowed, rushing forth to take the Romans from the rear as the cavalry force that had been hidden behind a hall crashed into their flank.

And Heliopolis was ours.

__________________

December 640 AD, Muharram 20 AH

Thorns pricked at my thighs and side, cutting deep into my skin. My breath mingled with those of a dozen others, but none of us shifted from our place nor did we voice our discomfort. We remained still as we were, resting in the shadows, silent and motionless as idols.

The moon was obscured by plump clouds and our camp stretched to the southern horizon beyond, resting beneath a dark canvas littered with stars.

It had been months since the Battle of Heliopolis. A scant garrison had been left to occupy the city, while the bulk of our forces resumed their focus to the siege of Babylon Fortress.

Months passed, nights waned, and the season shifted, but no progress had been made on this front. Many succumbed to dysentery in our ranks, a disease all too common among marching armies. Men called it the shits. Victims would suffer from loose bowels and high fevers and they would waste away within days, but not before they took a few of their comrades with them.

Starvation was another hurdle our besieging force was to contend with. Ibn al-'Aas had dispatched a force that successfully conquered the Fayyum region to the south weeks earlier, but we were still finding it difficult to live off the land and our supplies were dwindling. Madinah had not reinforced us in months.

We had to rely on the governors of conquered cities. That was our saving grace, but it only helped us to barely survive. The siege was making for slow pace, a drudging and tedious event.

Poor Mundhir must have been terrified. Alone. Without friend or ally, among those bastards that took him. Who were they? Did he embroil himself in gambling? Was he indebted to some powerful people?

"Perhaps he slept with the wrong person this time," 'Amr theorized.

"How could you say that?" I demanded.

He shrugged. "Think about it. He can't keep it in his pants. One girl or another's family must have found out and sought retribution."

"Then why not just kill him?" I pondered. "Why abduct him? And send us on this wild chase?"

He had no answer to that.

"It must be somewhere by the Nile," 'Amr guessed. "A mountain or a tower."

I shook my head. "Not many mountains directly by the Nile. Not many ones of note, at least. Whoever composed that note would have taken him some place notorious. There are three main bodies of water in Egypt. The Mediterranean to the north, the Nile that runs across its length and the Red Sea to the east, separating it from Arabia."

"The Red Sea, then?" he asked.

"Perhaps. There are mountains there."

To make matters worse, the Romans had grown bolder. They lost several coastal cities as well as Heliopolis and Fayyum to the south, but that did little to alter their morale.

The remnants of the defeated force at Heliopolis had fled to Babylon, seeing their ranks further bolstered. We could not scale the fortress walls or come barging at the gates without sustaining heavy casualties, the deep ditch that separated us from the Romans acting as a great hindrance to such efforts. However, it did not stop the Romans from harassing us.

Almost daily, a force of Romans would sally out from Babylon's walls and strike at a group of vulnerable, unsuspecting Muslims. The casualties were mounting, our already few numbers depleting, and it was a matter that would no longer be ignored.

Zubayr ibn al-'Awwam tasked me with leading this force, springing another trap. It was the first time in my life that I was in the chain of command, a leader of men.

I was a man of five and twenty, in my prime and a great bull of a warrior, with impressive arms and broad shoulders. I had a sharp mind for devising plans and tricks as I had proven at the Pharos of Alexandria and again at Heliopolis.

But I was without experience in leadership. Sure, I had led a task force to relieve people from Syria during the plague, but that was hardly the same.

It was a daunting task, a burden weighing me down, to be entrusted with this responsibility. One misstep and it would mean the lives of seventy good men, and mine would not be spared.

Which is why I ignored the pricking of the thorns, their clawing and their scratching. I organized this entire trap, with some assistance from Zubayr. Ibn al-'Aas, of course, was characteristically unenthusiastic about anything that included my touch.

I noticed that the areas in our camp the Romans picked to harry us were ones that boasted of few campfires, which suggested to them that those occupying the area were asleep, thus more susceptible to be taken by surprise. A group ripe for inflicting heavy casualties, in their minds.

I selected a patch of land to the north of the fortress, at the edge of the ditch. A hundred or so additional men, under the command of Zubayr, were resting in their tents to our left, with only twenty or so campfires active. The ruse was to have our men seemingly go about their night as usual. Either reclining in their tents or about their campfires, unassuming and unaware.

There was dense undergrowth at the edge of the ditch; there was a distinct opening, though, a gap between two concentrations of thickets.

Thirty-five men, at the head of them yours truly, shrouded by bush, thorn and darkness in one of these thickets, while another thirty-five crouched in a similar position opposite us.

The Romans always attacked at midnight. It seemed this night would pose no exception, I thought as I heard the sound of approaching footsteps, the perceptible jingling of mail links.

The Romans were coming, lured by the vulnerable state of the 'barbarians' on this side.

We will show them how barbaric we really are, I remembered 'Umar ibn al-Khattab's words when I was but a child. It was the first time he voiced ambitions of toppling the Romans and Persians from their perch. He had not failed in delivering on that promise.

The Romans emerged into sight now. They were tightly packed in a testudo formation, resembling a turtle huddled within its shell; each soldier's shield was overlapping with that of his neighbor to his right. The men in the ranks behind would raise their own shields to hover over the heads of their comrades at the front, protecting their heads from missile bombardment or the like.

It was a decent formation for stealth and caution; they advanced at a snail's pace and my anxiety was building up by the second. I needed to time this just right. The slightest miscalculation would end in disaster. I whispered a prayer to Allah, in hopes of salvation.

They might as well be crawling, I thought, peering at their advancing formation. They were still within the ditch, now climbing up to our bank.

"Why not just rescue?" the Nubian asked before, in his simple and few words. His Arabic was poor, a language he was yet to master. "Mundhir, I mean. Why stay...here?"

"We can't do anything on our own," I explained. "It's better to rescue him with an army than with two swords and an axe. Besides, we have no idea where he is. Where to go."

The Nubian was at my side that night, and I noticed him kissing his necklace. 'Amr wore an identical one.

I took a deep breath and shut my eyes closed for a brief moment. Qusayy had taught me a prayer to use in times of impending peril.

Save me, Hubal, or else I'm damned and doomed to die.

It was a prayer I found great comfort in, but I could not word it out any longer.

The Romans emerged on our side of the ditch, the shields of the first rank facing the apparently sleeping Muslims. The formation's flanks were vulnerable, untended to by shield or any semblance of protection.

The Romans were at arm's length now, shuffling forward. I caught my breath and gripped my sword's hilt when the first line of shields passed me by.

Now.

I pounced forward with a wordless cry, sweeping my sword in a wide arc as I slammed my shield into the side of a bamboozled Roman soldier. My men at my back followed suit and crashed into the testudo's flank. Our counterparts on the other side mirrored our attack and we caught them in a pincer.

I was too immersed in the slaughter to pay heed to the fighting elsewhere, but the men led by Zubayr, feigning sleep or reclining at their campfires must have sprung into action at the same time, raining their spears and swords down onto the wavering shields of the packed first line. The Romans were crushed from three sides.

They put up feeble resistance and we made short work of them.

We had ambushed the ambushers.

Thus, we saw the might of the Babylon garrison fade and wane. They troubled us no longer after that skirmish, though I was wounded in my shoulder, a shallow cut. Nevertheless, Zubayr insisted on having it tended to immediately and see my every need catered for in his very own tent, until I recovered.

"Consider it a reward for a task well fulfilled," he said, much to ibn al-'Aas' chagrin. The tension between us only grew by the day; we spoke few words of hostility to one another, but our eyes expressed what our tongues could not.

But then, I would look up at the moon. I would look up at the moon and wonder if Mundhir was doing so as well.

"Wallowing and whimpering, high above," said the poem. "Waiting in his misery, for when he is found,

He will topple down to the cove."

I'll find that damned poet, I thought. And shove the note up his cove.