May 636 AD, Rabi' al-Awwal 15 AH

I listened to the cries of the seagulls and the crashing of the waves against Alexandrian shores. I felt the unrelenting gusts of wind lap at my face and tug at my clothes. My eyes darted from one spot to the other; there was the ripple of water further into the open sea, disturbed by rowers' oars or the gentle flapping of a distant fish, rising past the surface of water only to plummet and submerge again.

Yet, my focus was only on the slaughtered carrion that lay in a pool of blood and sand at my feet. I was whispering my prayers to my gods, in order for them to accept my offering and bless me with greater fortunes in the days to come.

I had slit the carrion's throat at the foot of a wooden altar crowned by my alabaster idol of Hubal. I gathered an adequate amount of its blood into a water skin, which I held before its carcass on the beach. I bathed the carcass in an abundance of pitch.

Now, I hovered over my offering, a torch in one hand, the water skin filled to bursting with blood in the other and a prayer on my lips.

Finally, I concluded my sacrifice by tossing the torch onto the carcass and began the ritual humming. I put the skin to lips and gulped the sour and metallic liquid.

The flames leapt up almost immediately, the hungry spirits of fire quickly engulfing the carcass and preparing to send it to the lofty abodes of the gods. I closed my eyes and inhaled; all I could see was Martha's terrified eyes, the absolute look of horror as I confessed unapologetic sins of a life past. A life restored.

She was looking at a stranger; a beast that inhabited the body of the man she took for a fool nearly four full years. It had only taken but a moment to trigger that beast from below the surface, only that split second in order for it to see the light and take full control of the man who had once wished for a stable domestic life. A life of the sweet laughter of children and the warm embrace of wife.

The man was dead now, and with him his dreams. Martha had always spoken of my naivety for harboring such desires. She claimed it an impossible feat for a fugitive standing auxiliary barbarian and a common whore to elevate themselves beyond such and establish a respectable status for themselves. That the elite of Alexandria would never stand for such soaring of fortunes.

As the fires cracked and roared on that beach, I supposed she was right. Such dreams belonged in the mind of a soft man, a weak individual, that knew naught of the capricious nature of this world.

Such hopes and desires could merely exist in the minds of a child, never given the chance to foment in the realm of reality. This world was one that belonged to the gods, and their iron wills sought only blood, death, fire and destruction. A man could only earn his desires through the struggle of survival. Evading one hurdle after the other and staying satisfied no matter the outcome.

Such is the reality of this life.

I would quench my newly restored desire for blood soon. The Muslim armies had grown far too troublesome to retaliate against with mediocre force. The Muslims had expanded northward and taken much of Syria from the Romans, as far north as Hims, as well as annexing Ghassanid territory.

Some of the Ghassanid tribes had taken up arms against their Roman overlords and joined the Muslim cause, but the vast majority remained loyal and were dispersed among the ranks of the Romans as auxiliary troops.

Word was that the Muslims had also encroached on Persian territory, raiding deep into the heartland of Mesopotamia, conquering the lands known to the Arabs as the Island, or simply 'Iraq.

The Romans could no longer treat this new threat as a meager band of savage raiders that spilled forth from their deserts to poach gold and food and women. A ragtag band of rogues that could easily be pushed back through the use of the lowliest of garrisons.

This fledgling state of barbarians was there to stay in annexed lands.

Now was the time to strike back, the Romans decided; the Roman Emperor had ventured forth the city of Antioch, rattled by the increasing success of the Muslim armies.

Emperor Heraclius, it was said, had struck a deal with the Persian Shah, the ancient enemy, to coordinate a simultaneous attack on the invading Muslim armies in either domain. The Persian Shah was required to pounce on the force ravaging 'Iraq while the Romans were to simultaneously strike their own Muslim assailers in the Levant.

Emperor Heraclius had been spending the better part of a year gathering men from all of his provinces to deal the decisive blow to the infiltrating enemy and push them back to their Arabian homeland once and for all, thus reclaiming lost territory and eliminating this looming threat.

And so, shortly after the defining spectacle at the tavern, the tetrarchs of the auxiliary camp lined up all their subordinates for the bikarios, the officer highest in the chain of command and inferior only to the tribunos in the hierarchy, to give a rousing speech of the glory of Romans past, present and future, the honor of Constantinople, Christ and Emperor.

There was also something about our duty to smite the barbarian and return him to his tent and hovel. A ridiculous speech seeing that this was the auxiliary tagma; he had entirely overlooked the fact that literally all of the soldiers were considered barbarians and savages by these same Romans.

However, I cared not for the speech nor for the man spilling empty words from his lips. The incident at the tavern granted me clarity of mind and spirit.

I knew who I was now. I knew my identity, my motives, my goals. Qusayy's soul yet roamed the deserts, lost and aimless due to its failure to be avenged. His killer yet drew breath, and that was a misfortune that ought to be remedied in order to restore Qusayy's soul to peace.

And there was a promise I needed to keep. I killed Mas'oud ibn al-Aswad and his two eldest sons, but my job was not yet complete. Mas'oud had two other sons and a daughter that needed to perish. I promised Yazid I would hunt them down and slaughter them. To massacre their own kids, down to the last infant.

And foremost on my list was my wish to reunite with Mother and my brothers. I had been away from 'Amr and Mundhir for nearly six years, and from my mother nearly ten.

My mother had been long since shackled by the bonds of slavery, serving some shriveled Bedouin chieftain that had taken her as a prize following the cleansing of Madinah of the Banu Qurayza. That chieftain needed to die as well, and I would see to it that his own family follows him to the grave.

For now, I had to focus on the slaughter to come. I was the owner of a great horde of gold, and my destiny would not be intertwined the auxiliary if I desired it. However, my life in Alexandria was ended, tainted with blood and betrayal.

I needed to return to the windswept desert, and the comparatively poor lodgings of Madinah. I did not belong among these people, nor was it my fate to dwell in the trappings of luxury and wealth.

I would trade the Mediterranean Sea for the ocean of sand, the hippodrome for oasis and sand dune alike, the sight of the towering lighthouse for dark peaks or reddish hills. For a life of fortitude and strength.

In order to secure that life for me once more, I needed to settle my blood feuds. Once the Romans squashed the Muslim army beneath heel, I would settle many a score and see more wrongs righted.

I could not bear the sight of the sea nor the din of the Egyptian district without thought of Martha crossing my mind. Every time a gale washed over me, carrying the distinct smell of saltwater, Martha's dying moments rewinded spontaneously in my mind's eye.

And for the second time in my life, I would abandon a place plagued with the ghosts of the past.

And so, I marched east with the auxiliary tagma, linking up with the proper Alexandrian Roman unit, the tagma of Alexandria. We headed for Antioch, to answer the Emperor's summons.

Arcadius was absent; he had not returned to camp since the night I caught him at the tavern. No one noticed, and I cared not. The tavern was known to hire thugs and brutes that would not flinch from dishing out justice for those that would dare lay a finger on one of the workers.

He would be rotting at the bottom of a piss stained ditch by now, throat slit. The image brought a smile to my lips.

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The march east was sluggish, and the days trudged by like weeks.

We were scorned by the troops of the Roman tagma, Egyptian and Greek alike; treated like the savage scum they thought us, reduced to performing the meagre tasks of setting up camp, foraging, preparing fires or meals and the like.

The Nubian had to be restrained on several occasions when goaded, lest he escalate the tensions within the camp. I cared little for childish comments from the unwashed mouths of soft Romans.

I was eager for battle. In the meantime, I had my curved Persian blade at my hip, my bow across my back and Hubal's idol on my person at all times.

And rock-smashing duty, apparently.

"We aren't skirting no fucking boulder," Dalmatius rasped three or so days into our march. We were near the port city of Pelusium, the Mediterranean in full view to our north. Apparently, Dalmatius had stumbled upon a large boulder at the head of the auxiliary column, our column. "Smash the bastard so we can keep going. You heard me, you fucking abominations. Come here, Hanthalah, you camel piss drinking, goat shagging barbarian!"

And so, the rhythm for our march to the Levant was set. In close proximity to Pelusium, the proper civilized Roman soldiers jeered and sniggered at us, spectating in bizarre amusement as we were forced to pummel a boulder we could have easily removed to the side of the path, or simply avoided, to tiny pebbles with the soles of sandals or boots. We suffered similar such humiliations on the drudging route to Antioch.

"By Christ!" Kusaila exclaimed. The Numidian's forehead was glistening with a thick sheen of sweat. "Do you think we'll ever get there?"

But get there we did.

We arrived just in time to link up with Heraclius' great host, forty thousand men in total, all gathered at the city of Antioch. Tagmas summoned from all over bristled inside the walls of a city almost as glamorous as Alexandria.

Gathered from provinces to the west, south and east, a multi-ethnic army of civilized Roman men that hailed from Anatolia, Armenia, the Caucasus, Greece and other European lands, primarily those of the Balkans.

There were auxiliary troops that lent their aid to the Romans as well, though they had not been trained as part of a standing tagma as we had; there were Ghassanid Arabs, those of the ancient tribes of Ghassan to the north of the peninsula who adopted this Roman cult, Christianity. There were Numidians as well, and even those who hailed from lands furthest west, the lands at the edge of the world. Franks, they were called.

Antioch was a city very much similar to Damascus; the great throngs of people, the sections of the city where the buildings were crammed against one another, emitting the usual din of a busy marketplace and the odd trails of smoke leaking upward to the sky.

There were the richer districts of mouthwatering palaces, lavish villas constructed in the ostentatious Roman style, and breathtaking monasteries and churches refurbished with inlaying decorations of gold, silver or ebony.

However, I hadn't time to revel in what trappings this city had to offer. Alexandria far eclipsed it in terms of beauty, and I had sated my appetite of the Roman city life.

Besides, we were ordered to march out of the city only days after our arrival. It seemed Heraclius intended on counter-attacking the ravaging Muslims, in order to actively re-conquer all the cities and farmland he had lost to their incursions.

And that's the story of how I found myself entrenched within the ravines of the valley of Yarmouk.