Kwasin and his men began thrusting their way through the throngs of distraught residents. Shock had turned to bitter anger. Having seen their king emerge from the half-ruined house, many began shouting at him, accusing him of bringing misfortune to their neighborhood with his ill-fated presence. Some yelled at him that he must surely be cursed, since their beloved King Roteka had been killed the very night Kwasin had returned to Dythbeth. And now, Queen Weth was dead at the hands of an assassin, and who knew how many had died in the earthquake?

  Although they must have felt great trepidation, the guardsmen maintained a stoic demeanor and drew in closer about their king. Kwasin hoped they could reach a safer district before the mob got the notion to hurl at them the bricks, stones, and other debris that lay scattered across the street.

  At last they arrived at the main road leading past the military barracks. Here a number of soldiers greeted him, giving their king a much different welcome from the one he had just received in the poverty-stricken environs behind him. Instead of feeling cursed by Kwasin’s presence, the soldiers seemed heartened at the unexpected appearance of the king who had fought so valiantly at their side. Several men cheered out his name, but Kwasin could waste no time on adulation. As he jogged down the road, he shouted at those who were not already busy dealing with the earthquake’s mayhem, telling them that any soldier who was able should make haste and accompany him to the palace, as their empress might be in desperate need of help. Immediately, the soldiers in range of his voice stopped what they were doing and joined their king.

  When they neared the palace, Kwasin began to fear greatly for Awineth’s safety. Even from a distance he could see that a massive fissure had cracked vertically down the face of the citadel’s great dome, the dark, jagged breach looking like a lightning bolt in the negative. An enormous amount of granite must have tumbled down inside the palace’s main chamber when the tremor struck. Anyone beneath the fissure—and Awineth’s duties as empress brought her often to the throne room under the dome—would have been killed instantly.

  By the time he was halfway across the bridge that spanned the moat, he could see a group of priestesses congregating near the base of the citadel’s eastern side. He sighed heavily, surprised at the depth of his relief. Among them he spied Awineth. The queen’s antechamber, which Awineth had occupied after Weth’s death, was positioned along the eastern wall of the palace, and Kwasin guessed the empress and her attendants must have fled the room by means of secret tunnels of which he had no knowledge.

  Kwasin’s party had crossed half the distance between the bridge and the palace when without warning the earth again began to shake and rumble. The aftershock lasted for only a moment, but another mass of the royal palace’s great dome tumbled inward, its crash thundering across the courtyard. Awineth and her priestesses could be seen fleeing down the rear steps of the palace, trying to get to a safe distance away from the damaged building.

  Awineth’s face was drawn and pale when Kwasin finally met up with her. She took Kwasin aside from the others and said, “I know you have much work to do, but the people will need to be reassured. They will need to see me as soon as possible, and I need you to arrange it. I have already instructed my priestesses to spread word that Kho is angry at the blasphemous traitors of Minruth who have infiltrated our city. If any among the citizenry know the names of the traitors, they had better surrender them immediately or they will be struck down.”

  “I have news on that front which will please you, O Queen.” Kwasin held up the scrolls he had recovered from the house of Dykeko’s sister. “I possess here the names of those who must be routed out.”

  “That is good news indeed,” Awineth said. “But just before the temblor I received word from the oracle in the old temple. Wasemquth has revealed a dire prophecy from the Goddess.” Awineth paused, and again Kwasin felt the unfamiliar fear course through him.

  “Kho warns that if the old order is not soon maintained,” Awineth continued, “She will destroy all the land, including Her faithful people. It is an ominous message, of which today’s devastation is a clear harbinger, but I have begun to circulate the oracle’s prophecy in the hope that it will rally the people of Dythbeth to fight even harder.

  “And Kwasin,” she said, surprising him by laying a hand gently upon his arm and looking up at him with softened eyes. “I will need to rely on you greatly in the days and months to come. As will the people. And for that reason, and that alone, it is best we are not at odds. Hadon, who would have been my king had he not turned and fled like a coward when I needed him most, has by his actions forsaken the Goddess. But there is no time to hold Great Games to determine who is worthy of Kho’s high priestess. War, however, is a game greater than any staged contest, and in war you have indeed proven yourself a champion. Make no mistake, Kwasin, I do not love you, nor do I think that I, who have seen so much corruption and distrust, shall ever know love. The marriage will be one of convenience, and if I did not think it was necessary to win the war, it would never happen.”

  Even with her words of denial, she reached up and placed her hands about Kwasin’s neck and, drawing down his head, kissed him warmly upon the lips. Kwasin, though he was later to lament the missed opportunity, was too surprised to respond.

  When Awineth pushed him away a moment later, he found her eyes had returned to their usual cold gray.

  “Your city is in ruins, O King,” she said frostily. “Do not dally while your people are in need.” And then she turned her back on him and rejoined the party of priestesses.

  17

  In the days following the earthquake, things became much worse for the Dythbethans. A series of violent aftershocks jolted the region over the next two weeks, bringing further devastation to the already reeling city. Soldiers had to be pulled from the task of fortifying the walls, and additional troops were recalled from the front lines to help with the reconstruction and restoration of vital services.

  Further, it seemed the enemy had fared much better than the city-dwellers. The Khokarsans had weathered the quakes without significant damage, their structures at best consisting of a number of transportable tents. General Phoeken, sensing an opportunity, swarmed his troops into the vacuum left by the recalled Dythbethan armies. Before long, General Hahinqo and General Wahesa were forced to cede any gains made during the past two months, allowing the Khokarsan armies to close in on the city. Within a month after the first tremor, Phoeken’s men once again loomed just beyond the city walls, on the eastern boundaries of the great plain.

  The Dythbethans were also running out of food. The few remaining shops in the marketplaces lacked their usual abundance of local and exotic goods. No more the delightful aroma of freshly baked millet and emmer bread wafting in the air, nor the bountiful array of baskets bearing colorful fruits and vegetables; no pigs or domesticated buffalo waiting for slaughter; no ducks, partridges, ravens, and parrots left to quack, screech, croak, and whistle at the market-goers; and, perhaps worst of all, no casks of millet beer, sorghum beer, mead, wine, or s”okoko. Instead, driven to desperation by the blockade, the handful of merchants still in business had resorted to peddling the scrawny carcasses of domesticated animals such as dogs and cats, most of which had been rounded up from their owners by the merchants’ henchmen. A great price was charged for the meat, which only the richest in the city could afford; and to prevent rampant thievery by the desperately hungry, the merchants were required to hire guards—paid in food, of course—for their shops. Even insects, that usually ever-abundant staple of the Khokarsan diet, seemed to have become scarce and were being sold at exorbitant prices by the merchants. But mostly it was every man, woman, and child out for his or her own family.

  The feeble remnants of Dythbeth’s once proud navy had also suffered significant losses during the tremors and afterward. Great waves caused by the initial quake had sunk five biremes and three uniremes with all hands aboard. Only three weeks later, Admiral Nemusaketh was forced to defend the harbor against an all-out attack by the Khokarsan fleet. While Nemusaketh managed to hold his position and drive Minruth’s Admiral Poedy back out beyond the mouth of the harbor, he had little confidence he could hold the bay for long. He had lost another seven biremes to the deadly rams of Poedy’s ships. Awineth, on hearing the news, flew into a rage and ordered Kwasin to assist Admiral Nemusaketh. But before he could do that, Awineth summoned a great rally and called on Kwasin to assist her.

  Standing on the high steps before the crumbing palace citadel, with the starving and disconsolate masses thronging beneath her, the queen of queens announced the prediction of the oracle.

  “Great Kho,” Awineth’s voice rang out, “is preparing to shatter the foundations of the world and lay waste to her people!”

  The hordes of citizens gasped. Many prostrated themselves upon the ground, while others moaned and, in an expression of great distress, beat their fists against their own heads.

  “But this need not be!” Awineth cried out to the crowd. “Dythbeth must remain strong! All is not yet lost! Kho is angry, yes, but she has also laid down the groundwork for our salvation. Almost ten years ago Kho ordered the oracle to exile a man to the empires hinterlands. Kho did this not merely to punish the man for his crimes, but also because She wanted to mold him into a warrior so great he could one day lead the battle against Her son Resu. But the plans of the Goddess are often obscure in the moment, and for reasons then unknown She also sent the winner of the Great Games to the Wild Lands to locate a mighty weapon—an extraordinary ax, made of a metal forged and tempered by the raging fires of the stars themselves! A weapon of such potent strength that—in the hands of the right hero—it might smite down Resu’s armies and slay the sungod himself!”

  Kwasin, like many in the crowd below, stirred uncomfortably at Awineth’s words. Her sentiment went against the centuries-old tradition that placed Resu second only to Kho in the holy pantheon, and on equal footing to the Goddess according to the strict liturgical interpretation, although the latter view was largely ignored by the populace. But voicing such thoughts of deicide was perilous indeed. Awineth had been cunningly careful—she had not said with certainty that Resu would be slain by the ax, but rather that he might be slain. Still, the implication remained clear: Kho’s high vicar believed the Goddess was considering overturning the old order and removing Resu permanently from the pantheon. Somewhat to Kwasin’s disbelief, a majority of the onlookers erupted in frenzied support of their empress, shouting out wild encouragements. The faces of the priests and their followers, however, turned white.

  Awineth waited for the official criers to carry her message to the farthest reaches of the crowd and then continued.

  “But the heart of Hadon—the winner of the Great Games of Klakor—turned treacherous under the temptations of a woman, Resu’s pawn, the evil White Witchfrom the Sea, and Hadon turned his back on his queen. But Kho, Who sees all before it happens, foresaw this and caused the sky ax to fall to another, a mortal unlike any other—half-man, half-god—who might slay all Her enemies. The defender of the Goddess,” she cried, “the great hero selected by Kho to wield Her mighty weapon, now stands before you! Behold, the future betrothed of Kho’s high priestess, and the future king of kings over all the land! Behold, King Kwasin of Dythbeth!”

  At this moment, a priestess drew back the curtain from a framed structure that had been erected to hide Kwasin while Awineth addressed the multitude. Instantly, a thunderous cheer rose up and the spectators began chanting Kwasin’s name. As he had prepared in consultation with Awineth before the rally, Kwasin raised above his head the ax that had once belonged to the hero Wi, and then the manling Paga. Those in the audience who were not too weak from lack of food thundered out their adulations. The priests, of course, again refrained from applause.

  While the ovations, smattered with the occasional jeering, reached a crescendo, the traitors named in the missives of the priest Dykeko were paraded out and made to lay their heads upon a long stone bench that had been set up at the top of the palace steps. The accused, consisting of four priests and two priestesses formerly serving in the palace, had stood no trial other than that in the mind of the high priestess of Kho. New provisions in the law permitted bypassing the usual court system in such cases during wartime. Awineth, Kwasin reflected, seemed excessively eager to consolidate any power she could.

  A naked priestess, her face shrouded from view by a veil of black linen, stood beside the prisoners as guards secured them with iron chains to the stone bench. The veil represented the unknowable visage of Sisisken, goddess of the dead, and the great scythe the woman held symbolized the tool used by Sisisken to reap the spirit from the body of those she welcomed into her dark realm. Six times the scythe swung down. Then a soldier took the hair of the disembodied heads and tied them together with rope.

  Later that day, by the king’s order, the gruesome bundle of heads was loaded into a catapult high atop one of Dythbeth’s crenellated towers and launched onto the center of the great plain. Kwasin had no doubt General Phoeken would understand the message.

  18

  After the rally, determined to prove himself to Awineth and reverse the series of losses that had besieged the city, Kwasin sought out Admiral Nemusaketh. He asked the admiral if he could hold off Poedy’s navy and maintain his occupation of the bay for another ten days. Nemusaketh replied he could make no guarantees, but if his king so ordered it, he would hold the bay or die trying.

  And so it was that ten days later, on the first moonless night of the month of the goddess Khukly in the Year of the Horned Fish, Kwasin sailed out with a fleet of twenty-two black-painted longboats onto the calm waters of Dythbeth s harbor. As he paddled away from the docks he murmured a prayer to Tesemines, goddess of the night, and also sight and blindness. He would need her help if his plan were to succeed. He also prayed to Piqabes and Kho. It couldn’t hurt to be too careful.

  The longboats cut smoothly past Admiral Nemusaketh’s stately trireme and the thirty-three surviving biremes and uniremes that patrolled the mouth of the bay. Leaving the galley fleet behind and paddling forth into the Kemu’s impenetrable blackness, an almost overpowering sense of loneliness enveloped Kwasin. The enormity of the dark sea struck him, and he wondered at the incomprehensible game that was being played out by the deities while their mortal subjects struggled and died.

  They rowed for a great while before Kwasin saw the first evidence of Poedy’s fleet, a faint glimmer of light in the gloom that winked into and then out of existence. Probably the door to an officer’s cabin on one of the galleys had swung open and closed, briefly revealing lantern light from within.

  Kwasin looked back toward the bay. Nowhere could Nemusaketh’s fleet be seen in the inky night, though he knew that by now the galleys had already begun rowing forth behind him. He was hoping for a one-two blow against Poedy’s ships: first his own longboats doing the unexpected, and then, out of the pitch black of the moonless night, a strike by Nemusaketh’s entire navy. Small though the latter might be, and even smaller the odds of the longboats’ success, it was Dythbeth’s best hope to weaken the Khokarsan blockade and possibly allow some supply ships to get through. If Kwasin failed in his mission, however, a good chance existed that Poedy would take the harbor. Then, Dythbeth would fall in a matter of days at most.

  A charcoal-based pigment darkened Kwasin’s skin and that of the other rowers in the longboats, effectively cloaking them from the enemy galleys. Kwasin himself could only barely discern the craft that cut the waters only a few yards away, though he could hear the paddles of its oarsmen slicing the water.

  He whispered to the five oarsmen in his own boat and instructed them to head in the direction of the light that had briefly shone. The boat beside him followed dutifully, and Kwasin hoped it would continue to do so. It was a long swim back to the mainland.

  Having emerged into the wider Kemu, Kwasin’s boat loped forward on the crests and troughs of large, rolling waves. A few stars glinted through the breaks in the clouds and, as he rose up with the boat’s bow, he caught the faint flicker of lightning on the southern horizon. The rainy season was about to begin again, when rapidly forming and often violent storms were known to sweep across both great inland seas over a period of one to two months. Though he hoped the cloud cover would remain, he did not want to be caught out on the Kemu in a storm. Further, if the lightning moved northward and intensified, it could easily reveal his boats to the enemy.

  He bent into his oar and quietly urged the other oarsmen to do the same.

  The wind shifted and Kwasin and his crew had a hard time keeping the boat upright and on course. As waves broke across the boat’s windward side, and cold seawater splashed overtop them, Kwasin began worrying that the flammable oil and resin with which the boat had been doused would be rendered ineffective. He did not worry long, however. At that moment, the boat crested high above the other waves and he saw the enemy galley not twenty-five yards to port.

  By Great Kho’s teats, he was fortunate! The galley was a trireme. Tesemines must be looking down at him and stretching her toothless grin. Perhaps Kho or Piqabes would reward him too and the galley would turn out to be Admiral Poedy’s ship.