Scorn of Angels Read Online Free

Temple Mount when the sun rose.
    Arcana drew her sword and let her body assume its true shape. With ease she flew up to the top of the Dome of the Rock, only then noticing the remains of a man, his skull and ribs and pelvis impaled on the spike that topped the dome.
    That has to be Nyx’s work, Arcana thought . No mortal could have put him there .
    Scavengers birds had picked the remains clean, even though they were only days old. Now nothing remained but the bones. With the soul gone, the body was only dead weight, with no special purpose. Arcana laid her hands on the bones, whispering a prayer. This may have been a good man or an evil man; she didn’t know. But he had been Nyx’s enemy and for that, she acknowledged him. The bones dissolved, along with the stains the man’s fluids had left on the spike, and it all blew away into the wind.
    Arcana drew her sword. I may not be Gabriel , but he’s not the only horn player in Heaven .
    With a thought, her sword took the shape of a shofar—though it stayed as divine metal, rather than ram’s horn. Arcana took a deep breath, pursed her lips, and blew long and hard on the instrument. The sound echoed over the city, a clarion call that no man could ignore. Every able-bodied man grabbed his weapons and his armor and struggled into them. Every injured man tried to rise from his bed. All of them were filled with a nameless dread and a desperate, unstoppable compunction to be at the Temple Mount in time for the sunrise.
    The women and children of Jerusalem, abused, beaten, and hopeless, felt new strength arise in their hearts at the sound of Arcana’s shofar, and a new hope imbue their souls.
    The trumpet became a sword again and Arcana sheathed it. She smiled to herself. Not bad for an amateur.
    She let her body change, matching the color and shades of the dome behind her so exactly that only one standing beside her would see her. Then she waited.
    The sun rose and the men came to the west side of the Temple Mount in the thousands. They came with weapons in hand and hastily donned armor on their backs. They came in their bloody, dirty tabards, some with blood still on their weapons, others with flesh still wet from their assaults on the helpless of Jerusalem. Others came clutching bags of gold or jewels that they had looted, so that it would not be stolen from them as they had stolen it from its murdered owners. Knights rode up on horseback, and men-at-arms marched in groups to stand at the base of the Temple Mount and stare. All knew, beyond any uncertainty or doubt, that they needed to be there, that they were waiting for something.
    They stayed there as the sun rose higher. They talked uncertainly to one another, none understanding what had happened. Some whispered that it was Nyx who called them all again. Others declared it was a call to battle, that Egypt must be coming, and they must prepare. The Knight Commanders kept their mouths shut and waited, knowing it was not they who had called the entirety of the army—even those on duty—to come to the mountain.
    The sun rose above the Dome on the Rock, and Arcana rose with it, letting her camouflage fade and her wings spread wide. The sun hit her wings from behind, splitting into a thousand rainbows that blinded the men below in a dazzling wash of color. Her armor absorbed the light of the sun behind her, and channeled it out her front, so that she gleamed with a pure, white, blinding light. She had considered letting her hair loose as well but decided instead to wear it back in its ponytail, making her look as severe as she was feeling. Her magnificence was such that no man could look directly at her, yet none could look fully away.
    “Men!” Her voice echoed over the entire army, and the contempt and anger in it made every man’s heart quail. “You have disgraced yourselves before GOD!”
    The word she used was not “God” or “Yahweh” or “Allah” or “Jehovah” as mortals would call him, but God’s true