The Sunbird

In the centre of the glade Storch stopped abruptly and motioned Huy to stand still. He cocked his head in a listening attitude. They stood frozen for a long time, then Storch cautioned Huy to remain where he was and he moved forward.

A hundred paces from Huy, Storch stopped again, but now he turned and looked back at Huy.

For the first time his face showed expression, a wild exultation, a bright burst of triumph.

He lifted his right arm and pointed at Huy, a gesture of denunciation, and he shouted out in Vendi, ‘There he is! Take him!’

The grass of the glade rustled and shook as though a high wind blew across it, and from their places of concealment rose rank upon rank of Vendi warriors. Their shields overlapped, their lines formed concentric circles about Huy, ringing him in completely, and the plumes of their head-dresses were the foaming crest of a menacing wave about him.

Like the tightening of a strangler’s fist upon the throat, the rings of warriors closed in on Huy. Wildly he glared about him, seeking an avenue of escape. There was none, and he stripped the leather guard from the blade of the vulture axe and flew like a terrier at the throat of a black bull.

‘For Baal!’ he shouted his defiance as he charged into the solid mass of warriors.

‘The air in here is foul,’ Lannon complained, sniffing at it. ‘Is there no way in which we can drive ventilation shafts to the surface?’

‘Majesty!’ Rib-Addi could not hide his horror. ‘Think what that would mean. Workmen in here. He made a wide gesture that took in the entire length of the treasury. ’Can you imagine what tales they would take with them to inflame the greed of every brigand in the four kingdoms.‘

It was for this reason that the location and contents of the royal storehouse were such a closely guarded secret. The best-kept secret in the empire, known only to the king, the High Priest and Priestess, Rib-Addi and four other officials of the treasury.

‘I would have them sent to the gods immediately they had completed the task,’ Lannon explained reasonably.

Rib-Addi blinked with surprise. He had not envisaged such a sweeping solution to the problem. It took him a moment’s beard-scratching and deep thought to unearth his next objection.

‘A ventilation shaft would provide entry for thieves and rodents and damp. All these would damage and destroy.’

‘Oh, very well.’ Lannon dismissed the subject, knowing well that Rib-Addi resisted change merely because it was change. What had been good for the past two hundred years, must be good for the next two hundred.

Lannon watched as the latest shipment of finger ingots from the mines of the middle kingdom was reverently added to the piles of gold already laid down in the recess of the treasury. Rib-Addi noted the quantities meticulously in his scroll, and Lannon affirmed the entry by scrawling his personal sign beside the entry.

The four trusted officials filed out of the long chamber with its piles of treasure. While they climbed the flagged stairs, Rib-Addi sealed the iron gate. He pressed the Gry-Lion’s mark into the clay tablet, then he and Lannon climbed the stairs and passed through the sun door into the state archives. Lannon closed the door, and the massive slab swung into its seating with a solid clunk.

Lannon made the sun sign at the god’s image upon the door, then with Rib-Addi beside him discoursing as ever on wealth in its many manifestations, he passed down the length of the archives. The shelves were loaded with the records of the kingdom, and there was little space left. Soon he must turn his mind to an extension of these catacombs, how to enlarge them without destroying or damaging the existing structure.

They went out through the main portals, with their heavy leather curtains, into the guards’ antechamber where officers of the Sixth Legion guarded the entrance. At all times of the day and night two officers were here, and at their call a century of picked troopers of Legion Ben-Amon waited. The Sixth Legion had originally been formed as a guard to the temples and treasuries of the kingdom, and these still formed an important part of its duties.

Within the maze of the temple of Astarte, Rib-Addi took obsequious leave of Lannon and with his four underlings backed away bowing until he disappeared around the bend of the corridor.

Assisted by four priestesses, Lannon, naked and magnificent, took the ritual bath in the pool of Astarte and while they dressed him in the tunic of the supplicant, Lannon managed to insert a playful hand into the skirts of one of the novices without the others noticing. The novice’s expression did not change, but she pressed eagerly onto Lannon’s fingers for a moment before drawing away, and while Lannon strode down the passage to the audience chamber of the oracle he made the gesture of stroking his moustache to inhale the girl odour that lingered on his fingers.

They were all as hot as corn cakes sizzling on the griddle, these brides of the gods, having to rely as they did on the embraces of their own kind, or the furtive attentions of a priest or temple guard. Lannon grinned as he wondered how many of them took advantage of the licence of the Festival of the Fruitful Earth. How often had he committed the mortal sin of sacrilege with some heavy-cloaked and disguised priestess. The Festival was imminent, in two weeks it would begin, and as always he looked forward to it. Then with regret he remembered that Huy was unlikely to return from the north in time to join in the celebrations. It would detract from his own enjoyment. Lannon’s moods were always mercurial and now within a dozen paces his good spirits evaporated. As he entered the audience chamber he was scowling heavily.

He looked up at the oracle on her throne, sitting like an ivory statue with her hands folded on her lap and her face painted with cosmetics to resemble a mask, forehead white with antimony powder, eyelids metallic shiny blue and the mouth a vivid slash of scarlet in the pale face. He found a focus for his bad temper.

As he made a perfunctory obeisance, he remembered how often this witch had thwarted and unsettled him. He detested these sessions of divination, and yet found that they exerted a weird fascination. He realized that much of her oracle was dross, probably inspired by the politically active priesthood. Yet there was also much shrewd comment and excellent counsel amongst it, and occasionally there were nuggets of purest gold to be gleaned from the witch’s lips. During his regular visits he had tuned his ear to catch the nuances of the oracle’s voice. As with Rib-Addi, the witch had shades of conviction or hesitation in the manner in which she delivered the oracle. Lannon was sensitive to these, but more particularly so to a rarer tone, a monotonous low-pitched voice which the witch used when she spoke the miraculous god-given truths of real prophecy.

Now he took up his stance before her, legs planted firmly astride and clenched fists on his hips. With the arrogance of royalty heightened by his temper he asked the question.

Tanith hated these sessions with the Gry-Lion. He awed and frightened her. It was like being caged with some beautiful but savage predator, with its restless energy and unpredictable moods. The pale steely blue of his eyes had a predator’s cold killing lust, his features were chiselled, perfect but cold also with the same relentless passion.

Usually she had the comfort of Huy’s presence behind the curtains to carry her through, but this morning she was alone - and sick.

The night had been hot and airless, and the child in her womb as heavy as a stone. She had risen listless and pale from her couch, her skin damp with night sweat and she had forced down the light morning meal Aina had prepared for her, only to vomit it up again in a dizzy attack of nausea.

The taste of acid-bitter bile was in the back of her throat now, and sweat poured down beneath her cloak, tickling as it slid over her flanks and fruitful belly. She felt herself stifling, her breathing hunting raggedly for air, her body limp and weak, while the king growled his questions.

She was unprepared, her answers were empty words given without conviction, and she struggled to concentrate, to remember what Huy had told her.

The king was becoming restless, he strode back and forth before her, wearying her with his energy. She felt sweat break out beneath her mask of cosmetics. Her skin felt itchy and swollen, the pores blocked with paints and she longed to wipe it away. She had a sudden wondrous image of cool water falling over moss-covered rocks, of plunging her naked body into the green water, of sinking into it with her hair spreading on the surface, like the tendrils of a water plant.

‘Come, witch! Come, oh seer of the future. It is a simple question. Answer it!’

The king was stopped before her, one foot on the throne steps, shoulders drawn back and hips thrust forward in masculine hauteur, a sneer on his handsome face and mockery in his voice.

Tanith had not heard the question, she floundered for words, and another wave of nausea washed over her. She felt sweat break through the film of paint on her upper lip, and the nausea changed to dizziness.

Lannon’s face receded, and blackness closed about her. Her vision narrowed, and she looked down a long shaft of darkness at the end of which Lannon’s face burned like a golden star. There was a roaring in her ears, the sound of the storm wind through the trees of the forest. Then the sound of the wind died away into silence, and a voice spoke. The voice was husky and low-pitched, even and monotonous, the voice of a deaf woman or one drugged by the smoke of the bhang pipe. With mild surprise Tanith realized that the voice issued from her own throat, and the words shocked her.

‘Lannon Hycanus, last Gry-Lion of Opet, question not the future. The future for you is darkness and death.’

She saw her own shock repeated upon Lannon’s face, saw the colour fly from his cheeks, and his lips turn to lines of pale marble.

‘Lannon Hycanus, prisoner of time, pacing behind the bars of your cage. Blackness waits for you.’

Lannon was shaking his head trying to deny the words. The golden locks of his hair, still damp from the ritual bath, danced upon his shoulders, and he held up both hands in the sun sign, trying to avert the words which struck his soul like war arrows flighted from the bow.

‘Lannon Hycanus, your gods are passing, they fly upwards, and leave you to blackness.’

Lannon retreated from the throne, hands raised to shield his face, but the words sought him out relentlessly.

‘Lannon Hycanus, you who seek to know the future, know then that it lies in wait for you as the lion awaits the unwary traveller.’

Lannon cried out. and his terror exploded into violence.

‘Evil!’ he screamed, and rushed at the oracle, bounding up the steps of the throne. ‘Witchcraft!’ He struck Tanith in the face with his open hands, knocking her head across and back with heavy blows. The hood of her cloak fell back and her dark hair tumbled loose. The blows rang loudly against her flesh, but Tanith made no sound. Her silence drove Lannon on to further violence.

He caught the front of her cloak and dragged her from the throne.

‘Sorceress!’ he screamed, and flung her down the steps. She fell heavily and rolled, trying to come to her feet, but Lannon’s first kick caught her in the belly and she doubled up, clutching at her middle and groaning as his sandalled feet smashed into her.

Lannon was bellowing as he pursued her about the chamber, between kicks he was looking wildly about for a weapon, something to destroy the woman and the words she had spoken.

Then suddenly the chamber was filled with priestesses, and Lannon drew back panting heavily, the pale eyes bright with madness.

‘Majesty!’ The Reverend Mother came forward, and Lannon’s madness faded, but he was still shaking and his lips were white and quivering.

He turned and strode from the chamber, leaving Tanith whimpering upon the flagged floor.

The Divine Council of Astarte met in the Reverend Mother’s chamber, and when she read the Gry-Lion’s demand to them they listened quietly thinking their own thoughts. The Council consisted of the High Priestess and two advisers, both of them senior priestesses who stood in the direct line of succession to the Reverend Mother.

‘How can we deliver one of the sisterhood to the temporal body of the Gry-Lion. What precedent would we set by doing so?’ Sister Alma asked. She was small and wrinkled with a face like an inquisitive monkey. ‘What crime is the child accused of? If she has erred then it is for us to judge and punish. We must protect our own, even if it means defying the king.’

‘Can the sisterhood afford such a grand gesture?’ asked Sister Haka; dark-skinned and pock-marked, with long raven hair streaked with iron grey, her face was strong-jawed and her voice deep as a man’s. She was not yet forty years of age, and certain to outlive the Reverend Mother. Until recently it seemed she must succeed to the head of the sisterhood, a position for which she longed. However, since an oracle had emerged in Opet, her position was less secure. History had proved that every oracle, in time, became Reverend Mother over the claims of all others. In addition, this one had the unquestioned favour of the High Priest, an important consideration when it came to the filling of a vacant position at the head of the Divine Council. In Tanith she had a strong rival, but apart from the political consideration, Sister Haka had a more intimate score to reckon.

Even now as she remembered how her advances had been rejected, she felt hot anger flood her cheeks. She still longed for the girl, dreams of her still troubled her sleep, and often when she was with a young novice in the dark she would pretend that it was Tanith.

‘Are we strong enough to resist the demands of the king?’ She let the question hang, and looked at their faces. All of them knew what an impetuous, irresistible force ruled in Opet. All of them knew that no one, noble or priest, friend or enemy, had ever denied him his way.

The silence persisted, until Sister Alma coughed gusts of tortured sound, that crescendoed until she spluttered up a lump of bloody phlegm and wiped her lips with a damp cloth, her face strained and her eyes tired and dull.

‘Not long for you, old woman,’ thought Sister Haka with her grim satisfaction hidden behind a mask of concern.

Again they were silent, until the Reverend Mother spoke hesitantly. ‘Perhaps, if it could be shown that the girl has sinned, committed some crime.’

It was all that Sister Haka needed, ruthlessly she took charge. ‘Send for the girl,’ she instructed. ‘Let us question her.’

Aina helped Tanith into the chamber, both of them hobbling and doubled over, one with age and the other with pain. They clung to each other, and the ancient priestess was mumbling encouragement to the injured girl, but her face screwed up with anger when she saw the Council, and she screeched at them.

‘The child is hurt. Have you no care? Why do you summon her thus?’

‘Silence, old bag,’ Sister Haka spoke without passion. She was looking at Tanith. Tanith’s face was swollen and the bruises were purplish and livid. Her one eye was closed, the lid puffed and blue, and her lip was cut through and scabbed.

‘Let her sit,’ Aina demanded. ‘She is weak, and sick.’

‘Nobody sits before the Council,’ said Sister Haka.

‘In the name of the goddess.’

‘Do not blaspheme here, old crow.’

‘I speak not of blasphemy, but of ordinary mercy.’

‘You talk too much,’ Sister Haka warned her. ‘Go! Leave the girl here.’

It seemed Aina might argue still, but Sister Haka rose to her feet and her face was furious and her voice harsh with anger.

‘Go!’ she repeated, and Aina shuffled out grumbling and whining, leaving Tanith swaying weakly on her feet before the Council. Sister Haka sank down onto her stool and looked at Tanith. She would take her time now, there was all day if she needed it, and besides she was enjoying herself.

Tanith stayed upright by an effort of her will alone, for her senses swam and floated on waves and washes of pain. The leaden feeling in her legs and lower belly anchored her, but she could make little of the questions with which they pelted her. Sister Haka was leading her on to what it was that she had told the king to infuriate him. she was showing how Tanith had endangered the sisterhood by antagonizing him. She kept coming back to the question, ‘What was it you told him?’

‘I cannot remember, Sister. I cannot remember,’ Tanith whispered.

‘You want us to believe that words of such dire consequence can be so easily forgotten. Come, child, what were they?’

‘They were not my words.’

‘Whose then?’ Sister Haka leaned forward attentively, her face blotched with brown speckles of the pox and the wings of grey glowing in her dark hair ‘Whose words were they if not your own? The goddess’s?’

‘I do not know,’ breathed Tanith, and then she gasped as a fist of agony squeezed something within her lower belly.

‘Do you speak with the voice of the goddess?’ Sister Haka demanded in her hoarse voice, dark and cruel as a bird of prey. The hawk stooping on the sparrow.

‘Oh please!’ whispered Tanith, bowing slowly forward with both hands pressed to her stomach. ‘Oh please, it hurts. Oh, how it hurts!’

The three priestesses watching her saw the quick flood of liquid which drenched the front of Tanith’s tunic skirts, and splattered in dark red drops upon the flagstones between her feet. With slow grace Tanith folded and fell forward. She lay on her side with her knees drawn up and she moaned softly.

Sister Haka went quickly to her. and stooped over her, drawing up Tanith’s skirts and peering with tense lesbian interest as she pulled Tanith’s knees roughly apart.

She was smiling as she straightened, and looked at the other two. ‘There is your sin, Holy Mother. There is your proof of crime.’ She looked down at the huddled body at her feet, ‘Sacrilege!’ she accused harshly. ‘Sacrilege! A crime against the goddess.’

‘I will not answer,’ said Tanith gently. The bruises had faded and the swelling abated a little, but there was still a plum-coloured smear under one eye and her lip was distorted and scarred. She had been bedridden for ten days and she was still weak. ‘I will not tarnish something so dear to me with words. I will not tell you his name.’

‘Child, you know this is a matter of mortal sin. Your life is at stake here,’ said the Reverend Mother.

‘You have taken life from me already. Have done then. Take it all.’ Tanith looked directly at Sister Haka, and from her to Lannon Hycanus who stood by the casement of the chamber ‘It is your intention to kill me. Nothing I say will alter that. Very well then, I will cherish the name of my child’s father. I shall not let you use this against him also.’

‘You are being stupid and stubborn,’ said Sister Haka. ‘We will find out in the end.’

‘Why is it important?’ Tanith asked. ‘All that matters is that I stand between you and your ambitions.’ Tanith looked directly at Sister Haka, and saw her words had struck by the swarthy rose flushing of the priestess’s scarred cheeks. Tanith smiled and turned to Lannon. ‘All that matters is that I am the source of the prophecy. You seek to destroy that. You seek to have the gods revoke their sentence upon you. It is vain, Lannon Hycanus. The winds of destiny are blowing, the hounds of fate are already hunting.’

‘Enough,’ snapped Lannon, striding to the centre of the chamber. ‘I have no more time to waste. No longer can I listen to your idiot chatter.’ He looked at Sister Haka. ‘Bring the old priestess, the witch’s chaperone.’

When Aina stood blinking and bewildered before the king he looked at her without passion or anger. ‘You had duties. You did not discharge them. Name the bull who mounted the goddess’s heifer.’

Aina wailed protest, disclaimer, pleading her ignorance. She went down on creaking knees before Lannon, crawling to him, kissing the hem of his tunic, drooling with terror. Lannon pushed her away irritably with one foot and looked at Sister Haka.

‘Unless I misjudge your worth, you will not shirk man’s work. Have you the belly for it?’ he asked, and Sister Haka nodded, licking her lips, her eyes lighting with cruel anticipation.

‘Break her arms first,’ commanded Lannon, ‘And let the witch stand close by to watch it.’

Sister Haka pulled Aina to her feet, holding her easily with her strong brown hands on the back of which grew long silky black hairs. Aina flapped and squawked with terror, and Sister Haka turned and pinned her, twisting one arm backwards against the elbow joint. The arm was thin and white with thick blue cords of vein showing through the skin,

‘Wait!’ cried Tanith. ‘Let her go!’

‘Release her,’ ordered Lannon.

Tanith went to the old priestess and kissed her gently on the forehead and cheek. Aina was sobbing.

‘Forgive me, child. I am sorry. I would have told them. Forgive me.’

‘Gently, old mother. Gently now.’ Tanith led her to the doorway and pushed her tenderly out of the chamber. She went back to them and spoke to the king.

‘I will tell you his name - but you alone.’

‘Leave us,’ commanded Lannon, and the Divine Council rose and filed from the chamber.

‘When they were alone Tanith said the name, proudly and defiantly, and she saw Lannon reel as though it had been a physical blow.

‘How long has he been your lover?’ he asked at last.

‘Five years,’ she answered.

‘So, he said, seeing the answer to many questions. ’It seems we shared his love then.‘

‘Nay, Majesty.’ Tanith shook her head. ‘I had all of it.’

You are wise to speak of it as past,‘ Lannon told her. He turned away to stand by the casement, and looked out across the lake. Nothing must come between us, he thought, I need him. I need him.

‘What will it be, Majesty? Poison or the secret dagger? How will you kill a priestess of Astarte? Have you forgotten that I belong to the goddess?’

‘No,’ said Lannon. ‘I have not forgotten, and I will send you to her, on the tenth day of the Festival of the Fruitful Earth. You will go as the messenger of Opet to the Gods.’

‘Huy will not allow it,’ whispered Tanith in horror.

‘Huy is in the north - a long way from the pool of Astarte.’

‘He will hate you for it, always. You will lose him forever,’ Tanith warned him, but he shook his head.

‘He will never know that I ordered it so. He will never know that you betrayed him, told me his name.’ He smiled then, a cold and golden smile. ‘No, it is you that will lose him, and I that will have him. You see, I need him, and my need is more important than yours.’

He had been borne in a litter at first, while he was unconscious and then later when he was still too weak to march, so he did not know for how long and in what direction they had travelled.

Even later when he was forced to walk, they bound and blindfolded him, so that he was aware only of the press of their bodies about him and the stench of sweat and the rancid fat with which they smeared their skin. There was no answer when he spoke, and rough hands urged him forward, and a spear blade pricked him when he baulked.

He had been badly beaten and bruised, there were still lumps and gashes in his scalp, and his body was grazed and painfully wrenched, but he had taken no serious wounds, no deep spearthrust nor broken bones. It was as though they had carefully avoided dealing him a killing or crippling injury despite the fact that he had piled the corpses of their comrades in wind-rows about him, the vulture axe taking cruel toll before they overwhelmed him.

On the first night when they camped he began a tentative investigation of his position with escape in mind, but then when he tried to shift his blindfold enough to see out, a heavy blow in the face dissuaded him. They fed him a handful of boiled corn and a strip of badly aired meat, gamey and rank with bacon beetle. Huy ate it hungrily.

In the morning they were marching before the dawn, and when Huy felt the sun’s warmth on his cheek and saw the light through his blindfold, he repeated the praise of Baal silently and asked the god for his help.

Later that day he was aware of the ground levelling beneath his feet as though they journeyed across an open plain, and there was the smell of cow dung and smoke and humanity. Over the thudding rhythm of his escorts’ bare feet and the swish of their war-kilts he heard a vast susurration of voices and movement. Blending with this was the lowing of many cattle, the air quivered with sound and movement, a hive murmur which warned him of the presence of a great multitude.

At last they stopped him. He stood weary and thirsty in the hot sun with the raw-hide rope cutting into his wrists and his bruises and grazes aching. Time passed slowly in the silence of waiting men.

At last a voice called out loudly, and Huy’s nerves jumped. The voice was in Vendi demanding, ‘Who seeks the lion-clawed, who seeks the bird-footed?’

Huy remained silent, waiting for some indication of how to behave, and to his surprise he felt the cool touch of iron at his wrists and a blade sawed through his bonds. He rubbed his fingers, wincing at the flow of blood. Then he lifted his hands to the blindfold, expecting another blow, but none came and he loosed the cloth and blinked uncertainly in the bright sunlight.

His eyes adjusted quickly, and he felt his heart lurch with shock at what he saw. Huy stood at the centre of a wide plain, a slightly concave bowl of land rimmed in with low hills.

Except for a circular open area a hundred paces across, at the centre of which Huy now stood, the land was black with warriors. Huy gazed in awe at this multitude, and he could not begin to reckon their numbers. He would never have believed that the land could support such numbers, it was unreal, completely nightmarish - and the quality of unreality was heightened by the menacing stillness of the black hordes. Only the feathers of their head-dresses stirred in the sluggish wash of heated noonday air.

The heat and the press of humanity threatened to suffocate him, and he looked about him desperately as though seeking an avenue of escape. Storch stood near him, and he carried the vulture axe on his shoulder. Huy felt a weak flutter of anger for the man’s treachery, but somehow it seemed unimportant in the enormity of this fresh experience.

Storch was not looking at him, instead he was watching a group of Vendi war captains who stood about a low mound of earth at the end of the clearing. The mound was bare, but compelled the attention of them all, like an empty stage before the principals appear.

Again the voice demanded, ‘Who seeks the Great Black Beast, who hunts the lion?’

The heated silence and stillness persisted, then suddenly the multitude stirred and sighed as a man stepped up onto the mound.

The tall crown of heron feathers on his head and the height of the mound upon which he stood made him god-like. His robes of leopard skin hung to the ground about him, and he stood as still as a tall tree in a rustling plain of grass as the royal salute shook the foundations of earth and sky.

Storch carried the vulture axe to the mound and laid it at the king’s feet, then he backed away, and the king looked across the open ground at Huy.

Huy drew himself up, trying to ignore the aches of his body, trying not to limp as he approached the mound and looked up at Manatassi.

‘I should have guessed.’ he said in Punic.

‘You should have killed me,’ said Manatassi, and from the folds of his robes he lifted the iron claw. ‘Instead of arming me with this.’

‘You do not understand,’ Huy said. ‘Your life was not mine to take. I made an oath.’

‘Still a man who lives on his word,’ Manatassi said, yet Huy looked in vain for the traces of mockery in his voice,

‘There is no other way to live.’ Huy felt tired now, he faced his certain death with resignation. He did not really have the energy to debate it.

Manatassi made a gesture with the claw, indicating the massed ranks of his army.

‘You see what a spear I have forged?’

‘Yes,’ Huy nodded.

‘Who can stand against me?’ Manatassi asked.

‘Many will try,’ said Huy.

‘You amongst them?’

And Huy smiled. ‘I do not think I will have the chance to do so.’

Manatassi looked down at the little hunchback in his tattered tunic, his beard matted and the bruises on his face and arms, soiled and beaten, but not humble as he discussed his own fate.

‘Not one of my men understands us,’ Manatassi told Huy. ‘We can speak freely.’

Huy nodded, puzzled, but interested in this change of mood.

‘I offer you life, Huy Ben-Amon. Come to me, give me the love and duty you have given to the Gry-Lion of Opet and you will live to be an old man.’

‘Why do you choose me?’ Huy asked.

‘I have waited for you. I knew you would come. My spies have watched for you, but it was fate that delivered you so neatly into my hands.’

‘Why me?’ Huy repeated.

‘I need you,’ Manatassi said simply. ‘I need your learning, I need your understanding, and your humanity.’

‘You forgive me the taking of your hand?’ Huy asked.

‘You could have taken my life,’ Manatassi answered.

‘You forgive the slave lash and the mines of Hulya?’

‘Those I will never forgive,’ Manatassi snarled, his face twitching and the eyes glaring smoky yellow. ‘But they were not your doing.’

‘You forgive the massacre at Sett?’ Huy persisted.

‘You are a soldier, you could do nothing else ’

Manatassi was still trembling, and Huy sensed how narrowly he skirted the abyss, but he felt compelled to explore this man’s strength - and weakness.

‘What would you have of me. then?’ Huy asked.

‘March beside me,’ said Manatassi.

‘Against?’

‘Against Opet and its monstrous cruelties and terrible gods,’ Manatassi urged him. ‘With you beside me and this army at my back I will rule the world.’

‘I cannot do that,’ Huy shook his head.

‘Why not? Tell me why. It is evil, it must be destroyed.’

‘It is mine.’ said Huy. ‘My land, my people, my gods - therefore they cannot be evil.’

‘I thought you were a man of reason,’ Manatassi snarled.

‘Reason can carry a man just so far, and then he must trust to his heart,’ said Huy.

‘You refuse me, then?’

‘Yes.’

‘You know that you choose death?’

‘Yes.’

Manatassi raised his hand, the iron claw glowing in the sunlight, and Huy knew that when the hand fell he would die. He steeled himself to meet it as calmly as he had dealt it.

Manatassi turned away. Then after a moment he sighed, and his shoulders beneath the thick scars heaved.

‘You spared me,’ said Manatassi. ‘I shall spare you.’

Huy felt weak with relief. He had not wanted to die, and he allowed himself at last to think of Tanith and the child. Now he would still see his son, and his heart soared.

‘Go back to Opet. Go back to your king. Tell him that Manatassi, the Great Black Beast, marches out of the north to destroy him.’

‘Should you warn an enemy?’ Huy asked. ‘Did I teach you that?’

Manatassi smiled. ‘A warning will not help him,’ he said. ‘Tell him what you saw here. Tell him of this army - and let it chill his guts. Tell him I come for him, and I will spare none nor leave a memory of him to taint this land. Tell him I come, and I come swiftly.’

Manatassi picked up the vulture axe and handed it to Huy.

‘Go!’ he said. ‘All debts between us have been paid. You have no call on me, and I have no call upon you. When I meet you again I shall kill you.’

They stared at each other, standing close enough to touch, but separated by a distance wider than the span of the oceans or the vastness of the land.

Huy turned and limped away down the corridor of warriors that opened for him, and no man barred his way.

‘Old mother, you must not distress yourself so,’ Tanith whispered. ‘It was not your fault.’

‘I would have told them,’ Aina mumbled. ‘I know I would have told them. That Sister Haka, she terrifies me.’

‘You did not tell,’ Tanith comforted her. ‘You kept our secret well - even we ourselves did not know you had found out.’

Aina set down the food bowl beside Tanith’s bed, and she smiled reflectively. ‘You were so happy, the two of you. It made me feel good just to see you. He is a good person, despite his poor crooked back, he is gentle and kind.’

Tanith moved across on the couch, making room for Aina to sit. ‘Sit by me for a while, old mother. I am so lonely here, it makes the waiting so much harder.’

Aina glanced fearfully across the narrow chamber at the barred doorway.

‘They do not like me to stay too long.’

‘Please,’ Tanith entreated. ‘There is so little time left.’ And Aina nodded and gathered up her skirts to sit, creaking at her knee joints, upon the couch. Tanith leaned closer to her, and she whispered eagerly, ‘Did you send messengers, did you find someone to go?’

‘I sent two young ensigns from Legion Ben-Amon. They worship the Holy Father as though he were himself a god. I told them that you were in mortal danger, and that the Holy Father must return with all speed.’

‘Do you think they will find him?’

‘There are a hundred roads that he might take, and the land is wide. I would not lie to you, my child. The chance is not good.’

‘I know,’ said Tanith. ‘And if they find him, can he return in time, and if he does, is there aught he can do to dissuade the Gry-Lion?’

‘If he returns in time, then you are safe. I know the man.’

‘Wait for him, Aina. If he returns, go to him secretly and tell him that the king knows about us. You must warn him of that, for he is also in danger.’

‘I will warn him,’ promised Aina.

‘Oh, I pray to all the gods that he returns swiftly to Opet. I do not want to die, old mother. There is so much I would yet have from life, but the days run out now. It is already the sixth day of the Festival, Unless Huy comes there are but four days of my life left.’

‘Gently, child/ Aina crooned and put an arm about Tanith to pat and cuddle her. ’Be brave,‘ she crooned, ’be brave, child.‘

‘It is not so easy,’ Tanith told her, ‘but I will try.’ And she pulled away from Aina’s embrace and sat up straight. ‘You must go now, old mother - or Haka will beat you again.’

On the walls of the fortress at Zanat, south of the great river, a sentry held a javelin lightly in his right hand, concealing it below the level of the parapet, and he looked down on the strange wild figure below him. The man’s hair was filthy and matted, he wore no armour, his tunic hung in tatters, and his face was bruised and badly swollen. He seemed to be wounded for he was doubled up painfully in an unnatural posture, bowed beneath the weight of the huge battle-axe he carried.

‘What is your name, and what your business?’ the sentry hailed, and the traveller looked up at him.

‘I am Ben-Amon, High Priest of Baal and warrior of Opet. My business is the king’s.’

The sentry started, and thrust the javelin back into its rack. He realized how close he had come to making a fool of himself. The crooked back and the axe were famous throughout the four kingdoms, he should have recognized them immediately, and he berated himself as he ran down into the courtyard shouting for the officer of the guard, warning him of their distinguished caller.

Huy came in through the side gate the moment it swung open, and he cut short the military salutes with a curt, ‘Enough of that nonsense.’

The officer of the guard was startled at having the legion’s beloved ceremonial dismissed in such a cavalier fashion, and he smothered a grin. Coupled with his appearance and his beggar’s garb this story would go to swell the body of legend that already existed about this remarkable little man.

Huy was striding past the hastily assembled guard, demanding of the officer as he passed, ‘Where is the general? Is he here?’

‘Yes, my lord - Holiness. He is in his quarters.’

‘Praise to Baal!’ Huy grunted with relief.

Huy wolfed a thick cut of cold meat folded between two corn cakes, and he washed it down with a bowl of red wine, speaking through and around each mouthful of food as he issued his orders.

Marmon’s scribe dashed off each article, racing to keep up with the flow of Huy’s words. Marmon sat on his stool in the corner, his head of silver hair shining like a summer thunder cloud and his handsome face anxious and worried.

He could hardly believe what he was hearing, yet he knew better than to doubt the word of Huy Ben-Amon. He realized that he was culpable, that he should have been the one to discover this deadly threat that had grown up so swiftly on their borders. Perhaps he had spent too much of his time dreaming over his ancient histories, perhaps he had grown old and feeble without realizing it. He wondered what retribution there would be from Huy Ben-Amon and the Gry-Lion of Opet. Neither of them were men who let failure pass unnoticed.

He listened as Huy issued the orders which would place every garrison and every unit on the alert, would mobilize every disbanded legion, would send messengers racing across the land carrying the scrolls that would place the entire empire on a war footing. Marmon wondered at the courage of a man who could make this battle decision alone, a decision for which he would have to answer to the king and the council of nobles. He might be held responsible for all the losses and damages that would arise when the entire industry and commerce of the nation were suspended. It was a decision upon which his own life might hang, as well as that of Opet.

As he watched Huy signing the orders he doubted that he would have had that much certainty of the rightness of his own actions. He knew he would have sent to Opet for orders, and probably have jeopardized whatever chance there was of survival. For, from what Huy had told him, it was a matter of survival. They were confronted by an enemy so vastly superior in numbers that success lay with the gods.

Huy was finished. He signed the last scroll and the fire went out in him. It was only then that Marmon realized that the man was exhausted. He staggered slightly, his whole body slumping and he seemed to shrivel in size under the burden of his weariness.

Marmon jumped up from his stool and went to him. Huy brushed off the helping arm and tried to gather his strength in hand again.

‘I must leave for Opet,’ he said, slurring like a drunkard and steadying himself against a corner of the table. ‘What day is it, Marmon? I seem to have lost count of the days,’

‘It is the seventh day of the Festival, Holiness.’

‘The Festival?’ Huy looked at him stupidly.

‘The Fruitful Earth,’ Marmon reminded him.

‘Ah!’ Huy nodded. ‘I did not think it was that late. Have you a war elephant to carry me to Opet?’

‘Nay, Holiness,’ Marmon told him regretfully. There are no elephants here.‘

‘Then I must march.’ Huy resigned himself.

‘You must rest first.’

‘Yes, Huy agreed. ’I must rest.‘ And he let Marmon lead him to the bedchamber. As he fell across the couch he asked, ’How long will it take to reach Opet from here, Marmon?‘

‘If you move fast, six days. Five, if you fly.’

‘I shall fly,’ said Huy. Wake me at dusk.‘ And he fell asleep.

Looking down on the sleeping figure. Marmon felt the familiar stirring of his affections. He felt his admiration for the great heart of this little fighting man, felt envy for the thrust and drive which always carried him ahead of the pack, and he was glad that Huy Ben-Amon led them at a time of such a crisis

It was then he remembered the messenger from Opet, the young ensign of Legion Ben-Amon who had passed through the garrison the previous day carrying an urgent message for the High Priest. He debated with himself for a moment, then decided not to disturb Huy’s rest. He would tell him when he woke at dusk

At dusk Huy woke, ate a light meal and oiled his body. Twenty minutes later he ran out into the cool of evening through the garrison gate with fifteen legionaries as escort, and it was only after they had disappeared into the dark and silent forests of the south that Marmon again remembered the message that the young ensign had given him.

He thought to send a messenger after Huy, but he knew that no runner of his could hope to catch the priest after he had such a head start. The speed of Huy’s long legs were part of the legend.

Marmon thought comfortably, ‘He will be in Opet soon enough.’ And he paced along the parapet until he reached the far side of the fortress. He stayed there until after darkness had fallen, staring into the turbulent north and wondering how soon they would come.

The Divine Council came to Tanith’s cell on the morning of the ninth day of the Festival of the Fruitful Earth. They were led by the Reverend Mother, frail and uncertain, shifty-eyed with guilt.

‘We have joyous news for you, my child,’ she told Tanith, and Tanith sat up quickly on her couch - her heart leaping within her. The Gry-Lion had changed his mind perhaps.

‘Oh, Reverend Mother!’ she whispered, feeling the tears of relief at the back of her eyelids. She was still shaky and weak from the loss of the child, and it took little to make her weep now.

The Reverend Mother was gabbling on, not looking at Tanith, unable to meet her eyes, and for a while Tanith was puzzled. She could not understand this talk of precedent and ecclesiastical law, until she glanced at Sister Haka’s face and saw how gloating and lustful were the dark features and how brightly the cruel eyes shone.

Then suddenly she realized that this was no reprieve.

‘And so in his wisdom the king has chosen you, has given to you the great honour of carrying the message of Opet to the goddess.’

They had not come to release her, but to seal her fate. Sister Haka was smiling.

‘You must give thanks, my child. The king has given you life eternal. You will live in glory at the side of the goddess, hers for ever,’ said the Reverend Mother, and the priestesses chorused, ‘Praise to Astarte. Praise to Baal.’

The Reverend Mother went on, ‘You must prepare yourself. I will send Aina to help you. She knows the path of the messenger well, for she has attended many of the chosen ones. Remember to pray, my child. Pray that the goddess will find you acceptable.’

Tanith stared at them, white-faced and afraid. She did not want to die. She wanted to cry out, ‘Spare me. I am too young. I want just a little more happiness, just a little more love before I die.’

The Divine Council filed from the chamber, leaving her alone. Now at last the tears flooded her eyes, and she cried out aloud, ‘Huy, come to me! Please, come to me.’

Huy struggled up through the glutinous dark swamp of exhausted sleep with the nightmare cry still echoing in his ears. It took him a while to remember where he was and to realize that he had dreamed the horror that had woken him.

He lay in the sparse shade of the wild fig, and through the branches he saw the altitude of the sun and knew that they had slept for only an hour. His legs still felt leaden, his body torpid and completely enervated by two days of hard travel.

He should sleep again for another three or four hours at the least, but the nightmare stayed with him, denying him rest.

He pulled himself up on an elbow, surprised at the effort it required, but then remembering that he had run over two hundred Roman miles in two days. He looked at the remains of his escort, three of them, haggard-faced and finely drawn from their exertions, sleeping like dead men in the attitudes in which they had fallen. The other twelve had dropped along the way, unable to match the blistering pace which Huy had set.

Huy heaved himself to his feet. He could not sleep, could not rest, while dread haunted him and the safety of his king and his land was in jeopardy.

He limped stiffly down to the bed of the small stream, and knelt in the sugary white sand. He splashed his face and body with the clear water, soaking his tunic and beard, then he climbed the bank and looked at his sleeping men. He felt pity for them, pity that did not prevent him calling out, ‘Up! On your feet! We march for Opet.’

One of them could not wake, though Huy kicked his ribs and slapped his cheeks with an open hand. They left him lying, whimpering in his sleep.

The other two dragged themselves up, groaning, moving with stiff sore legs, and the glazed expressions of fatigue.

Huy walked the first half mile to loosen aching muscles, with the escort staggering after him.

Then he went up onto his toes, changed the vulture axe from one shoulder to the other, and went away at a run, bouncing long-legged on a springy stride that covered the ground like the trot of an eland bull.

One of the legionaries cried out as his leg collapsed under him and he went down sprawling in the dust. He was finished, and he lay there groaning with mortification and the pain of cramped and torn muscles.

The other followed Huy, his steps firming as his legs loosened and charged with new blood.

They ran the sun to its zenith, spurning the pitiless heat of the noonday, and they ran on into the afternoon.

Ahead of them, low on the horizon, stood the perpetual bank of cloud which marked the Lake of Opet, a beacon of hope, and Huy ran with his face lifted to it, instinct guiding his feet and his will feeding his exhausted body, allowing him to run on when all physical strength was burned up.

In the last low rays of the sun the walls and towers of Opet glowed with a warm rose colour and the surface of the lake was flaming gold that pained the eye.

Huy plunged on down the caravan road, racing past other dusty travellers who pulled to the side of the track, calling after him as they recognized him.

‘Pray for us, Holy Father.’

‘Baal’s blessing on you, Holiness.’

Halfway down the pass of the cliffs that led to the lake shore and the city, the legionary who followed Huy shouted in a clear strong voice, ‘Forgive me, Holy Father, I can go no farther.’ And his knees buckled under him, he lost direction, blundering to the side of the track; his face contorted at the agony of his bursting heart, he went down face first and lay without movement, dead before he struck the ground.

Huy Ben-Amon ran on alone, and the guard upon the palace gate of Opet saw him afar off, and they swung the gates open to welcome him.

Tanith woke with gentle hands shaking her. There was a lamp burning beside her couch, and Aina leaned over her. Tanith saw that the old face was screwed up into a toothless grin, the monkey eyes twinkling in their web of ancient wrinkles.

‘Child, are you awake?’

‘What is it, Aina?’ Tanith sat up quickly, her spirits leaping upwards like sparks from the bonfire of hope when she saw Aina’s smile.

‘He is come! ’ Aina told her jubilantly.

‘Huy?’

‘Yes, the Holy Father has come.’

‘Are you sure?’ Tanith demanded.

‘I have heard it shouted in the streets. The whole city is agog. They say he ran from Zanat to Opet in three days, they say he killed fifteen men who tried to run with him. He broke their hearts and left them lying on the road,’

‘Oh, Aina.’ Tanith embraced the old priestess, hugging her to her breast. ‘If he came so fast, it must be because he knows.’

‘Yes, child. Of course he knows. Why else would he come with such speed? One of the ensigns would have reached him with my message. He knows all right,’ Aina drooled and nodded her conviction. ‘He knows!’

‘Where is he now?’ Tanith was laughing with her excitement, ‘Do you know where he is?’

‘With the king. He went straight to the palace.’

‘Oh, praise the goddess and all the gods,’ breathed Tanith. ‘He has gone to use his influence with the Gry-Lion. Do you think he will succeed, Aina? Will the king change his mind?’

‘Of course, child. Do you doubt it? If Huy Ben-Amon set his mind to it, he would make Baal himself change his mind.’

‘Oh, I am so happy, old mother.’ Tanith clung to Aina, and they comforted each other in the night. Until at last Tanith drew away.

‘Go to him, Aina. Wait for him outside the palace. Tell him everything, and come back to me with his message.’

As Aina was about to leave the chamber Tanith called after her, ‘Tell him I love him. Tell him I love him better than life and all the gods.’

‘Hush,’ said Aina, ‘hush, child. Someone may hear you.’

Alone, Tanith lay back on her couch and smiled.

‘I don’t care,’ she whispered ‘Huy is here, and nothing else matters.’

Lannon listened to Huy in rising consternation. His first thought when Huy had arrived unheralded and unexpected in the night was that he had somehow learned of the sacrifice at tomorrow’s ceremony. He had considered refusing Huy an audience, considered all manner of evasion, but while he was considering it Huy had barged his way into Lannon’s bedchamber past the startled and protesting guards.

Lannon had risen naked from the side of his youngest wife, angry words shrivelled on his lips when he saw the state to which Huy was reduced.

‘Forgive me, Majesty. I carry dreadful tidings.

Lannon stared at him, saw the filthy and dusty tunic, the unkempt hair and beard, the skull-like face from which the flesh had wasted, and the wild eyes in their bruised and sunken sockets.

‘What is it, Huy?’ He went quickly to the priest, and steadied him with a brotherly arm.

The Council of Nine, all the noble families of Opet, met in night session and they heard the report of Huy Ben-Amon in horrified silence. Only when he had croaked out the last of it and slumped wearily on his stool did the babble of fault-finding, and blame-laying, and self-pity and doubt begin.

‘We were told he was destroyed at Sett!’

Huy said, ‘You were told only that I slew 30,000 at Sett. I did not name them.’

‘How could such an army be recruited without our knowledge? Who is to blame?’

Huy answered, ‘It was recruited beyond our borders. No one is to blame.’

‘What of the mines - we must protect them.’

Huy smiled wearily, ‘That is what we intend.’

‘Why is there only one legion on the border?’

Huy answered them grimly, ‘Because you refused to vote the money for more.’

They turned on him then, their words hammering through the fog of weariness.

‘How did you pass unscathed through the enemy lines?’

‘Was not this Timon once your protege?’

‘You know him well, you taught him, did you not?’ And Huy looked at Lannon.

‘Enough!’ Lannon’s voice cut through the tirade. ‘His Holiness has called the nation to war. He has shown me copies of the scrolls, and I am about to sign them in ratification.’

‘Should we not wait a while?’ That was Philo, naturally, ‘Are we not being too hasty?’

‘What will you wait for?’ Huy demanded. ‘Until they open your bowels with a spear-blade and cut off your testicles?’

Lannon signed the war orders a little before dawn, and he dismissed the Council of Nine with the words:

‘We will meet again at noon, after the final ceremony of the Fruitful Earth. See to your arms and take leave of your families.’

To Huy he spoke kindly when they were alone. ‘Sleep here. There is nothing more you can do now.’

He was too late. Huy was already asleep, slumped forward on the table with his head on his arms. Lannon picked him up from his stool, and carried him like a sleeping child to a guest chamber.

He placed a sentry at the door.

‘No one must wake the Holy Father,’ he instructed. ‘No one! Do you understand?’

It was almost dawn. The sacrifice would take place in a very few hours, and he knew that Huy was in a kind of death sleep that might last for many days. He left him, and went to bathe and dress for the procession.

Aina lifted the hood of her cloak over her head, covering her face. She thrust her bony old hands into the wide sleeves, and leaned forward to blow out the lamp.

She stood in the darkness, considering what she must do. She would not wait for the High Priest to leave the palace. Aina had access to the palace kitchens. The majordomo there was the grandson of her youngest sister, and she often went to eat there as a change from the temple fare. All the palace slaves knew her. It would be a simple matter to find out from one of them whereabouts in the rambling mud-walled building the High Priest was, an even simpler matter to get word to him.

Quietly she drew the curtains of her cell aside, and peered out. There was a single torch guttering in its bracket at the end of the passage, but it threw only a feeble light and Aina did not see the dark figure waiting for her in a shadowy angle of the corridor until it came gliding towards her.

‘Not yet asleep, old woman?’ a deep, almost masculine voice asked softly, and a strong hand closed on Aina’s wrist.

‘Are you going visiting so late at night? Is it that you have heard of Huy Ben-Amon’s return to Opet?’

‘No,’ whimpered Aina. ‘I swear it.’ And she struggled feebly. With her free hand Sister Haka pushed the old priestess’s hood back from her face and peered into her eyes.

‘You were going to Ben-Amon, were you not?’

‘No. I swear it.’ Aina saw death in Sister Haka’s expression, and she began to scream. It was a thin passionless sound like the sound of the wind, and it was cut off abruptly as Sister Haka’s powerful hand whipped over her mouth.

From a doorway opposite a frightened face peered out, and Sister Haka snapped, ‘Go back to your couch.’ And the young novice obeyed quickly.

Sister Haka forced Aina’s frail body back through the curtains and onto her couch. She held her hand over mouth and nostrils, holding Aina down with an arm across her chest.

Aina’s struggles exploded feverishly, her heels drummed and kicked against the wall and her arms flapped and clawed at Sister Haka’s face. Then swiftly it was over and she subsided and lay still. Sister Haka held her mouth and nostrils closed for a long time after she was quiet, then with one hand she felt the scrawny old chest with its empty pendulant dugs for a heartbeat.

Finding none she nodded with satisfaction, arranged the careless limbs tidily, and left the cell. Through the single window slit the first light of dawn lit Aina’s face. Her mouth hung open, her eyes were startled and a wisp of silky silver hair floated on her forehead.

Lannon was conscious of the need to carry through the final ritual of the Festival meticulously. It was apparent that he faced a national emergency of vast proportions, that Opet was opposed by an enemy more powerful and relentless than any in her long history. The oracle had spoken against him, perhaps he or his kingdom had incurred the wrath of the gods.

Lannon knew that the fate of nations hangs not entirely on the actions of men, battles are not won by swords alone. He knew there were influences beyond, sometimes malignant and sometimes benign, which dictated the outcome of earthly affairs. He knew it was possible to placate an angry god, and to enlist the goodwill of one that was kindly disposed.

As the Reverend Mother led him through the catechism beside the pool of Astarte, he paid special concern to the correctness of his responses, and there was no mistaking the sincerity of his voice as he made his pledge to the goddess.

The priestesses closed in about him and light hands helped him shed his robes of purple silk. Currents of cool air stroked his naked body as he strode forward to the edge of the pool, went down the stone steps and lowered himself into the dear green waters.

His body shone white below the surface, and his long golden tresses and beard glistened with water as the priestesses beside him scooped up water in the conch shells and poured it over his head.

They emerged from the pool, and Lannon felt a sense of spiritual cleansing, as though the sacred waters had washed away his cares and armed him against the dangers that lay ahead. He was not a man of deep religious faith, and yet in this moment he felt uplifted. He was happy then that he had chosen such an important messenger for the goddess.

His own petty and personal motives no longer counted. He was sending a priestess of the blood, a god-touched oracle, a person of value and weight. Surely the goddess must find her acceptable, surely Astarte would now turn her countenance upon the children of Opet, spread her wings across the nation in this time of trial and danger.

They dried off his skin, and the muscle was firm and beautifully shaped in leg and arm and wide shoulders. Two priestesses came forward and lifted a white silk robe over his head, the colour of joy and rejoicing. The Reverend Mother placed a garland of flowers about his neck, crimson cave lilies whose scent was sweet and heavy in the hushed cavern.

It was the moment when the praise of the goddess must be sung, and then the offertory. The silence persisted a moment longer and then a voice rang through the cavern.

The voice startled Lannon, and he turned his head searching for the singer. There was no mistaking that voice, the sweet shimmering power of it, the depth and timbre that made the hair on Lannon’s forearms come erect and set the echoes flying about the temple, seeming almost to ruffle the quiet surface of the green pool.

Lannon gaped at Huy. He had stepped out of the ranks of nobles and officers and as he sang he paced slowly towards Lannon. His arms spread in the sun sign, his mouth wide open showing the strong white teeth and achingly beautiful voice pouring from his throat. The praise song ended, and Huy stood close beside the king looking up at him. His face was still raddled with fatigue, the dark eyes still underscored by bluish purple smears, the skin pale and drawn, but he was smiling at Lannon with an expression of loyal affection.

‘Huy!’ Lannon whispered in horror. ‘Why are you here? I left you resting with orders not to disturb you.’

‘At this time my place was with you.’

‘You should not have come,’ Lannon protested. This was beyond his planning. It was not part of it that Huy should witness the death of the witch. He had not intended torturing him with the deed. Wildly Lannon considered halting the ritual, withdrawing the sacrifice, ordering Huy to leave the temple.

Yet Lannon realized that the safety of the empire might be resolved in these next few moments. Could he halt the sacrifice, dare he risk antagonizing the goddess, was his duty to Huy greater than his duty to Opet, was it not already too late, had he not committed himself long ago to this path? Were the gods and demons mocking him now, could he not hear their hellish laughter echoing in the deserts of his soul?

Bewildered and appalled he stared at Huy, he took a step towards him, reaching out one hand in entreaty as though asking for understanding and forgiveness.

‘I need you,’ he said hoarsely, and Huy, not understanding, took the hand, thinking it the hand of friendship; proudly he smiled at his king and friend as he began to sing the offertory to the goddess.

His voice rose on eagle’s wings, flying up to the sacrificial platform in the roof of the cavern high above them. All the eyes in the temple turned upwards also and a tense expectant hush gripped the throng of worshippers

Tanith could not believe it was happening to her. When they had come to her cell in the dawn she thought it must be Huy come to fetch her away She had leapt from her couch and run to meet him.

It was not Huy but Sister Haka. They had taken her from the temple up the secret steps to the top of the cliffs above Opet. There in a stone building with a roof of thatch beside the sacrificial platform over the gaping hole above the pool of Astarte. They had dressed her in the rich embroidered robes of the sacrifice and put flowers in her hair.

Then they had draped her with the heavy gold chains, and bracelets, and leg bangles until Tanith felt she must collapse beneath the weight of them. She knew that this treasure formed part of the sacrifice, and that it was also intended to weigh her down swiftly into the green depths of the pool. The pool which had no bottom to it, the pool which would carry her to the bosom of the goddess.

Solemnly and in silence she was seated at the small banquet table, and her sister priestesses waited upon her, pressing her with choice foods and wines. It was the feast of farewell, the feast to someone who goes upon a journey. Tanith sipped a little of the wine, hoping that it might warm her icy spirit.

‘Huy,’ she thought. ‘Where are you, my love?’

At last a priestess came to the door and nodded to the others. There were fifteen of them, all strong young women, more than enough of them to overwhelm any resistance.

They closed in about where Tanith sat, not yet menacing but utterly determined. They looked down on her expressionlessly, their faces closed against pity or regret.

‘Come,’ said one of them, and Tanith stood up. They led her through the doorway into the sunlight, and ahead of her she saw the carved stone platform jutting out over the dark and gaping hole in the earth.

The path to the sacrificial platform was strewn with blossoms of the yellow mimosa tree, a flower sacred to the goddess. The scent was light and nostalgic on the warm still air, and the blossoms crushed beneath Tanith’s bare feet as she passed over them weighted down by her chains of gold, and the heaviness of her dread.

Suddenly she stopped, frozen at the sound of the voice issuing from the pit before her, a voice faint with distance and echoing strangely from the cavern walls; but the voice of such purity and beauty that she could not help but recognize it.

‘Huy!’ she whispered. ‘My lord!’ But the upwards flight of her spirits was short-lived, for the voice of Huy Ben-Amon was uplifted in the offertory of the sacrifice.

It was Huy who was sending her to the goddess, and in that moment a vision of hell and desolation opened before her. She found herself caught in the web of some monstrous conspiracy, not understanding it clearly, knowing only that Huy had deserted her. He was against her also. He was the one offering her to the goddess.

There was nothing to live for now. It was easy to take those last few steps up onto the platform.

As she paused on the brink she spread her arms in the sun sign and looked down into the gloom of the cavern. The waters of the pool were still and dark, and beside them stood the king and the priest.

They were looking up at her, but it was too far for her to judge their expressions. All she knew was that Huy’s voice was still raised in prayer, offering her to the goddess.

She felt hatred and anger replacing desolation, and she did not want to die with those emotions in her heart. To forestall them she swayed forward over the drop, over the deep green pool, and as she felt her balance go Huy’s voice stopped abruptly, cut off in the middle of a word.

Slowly she leaned out over the drop, and then suddenly she was in air, plunging downwards, hurtling towards the pool by the weight of gold she carried. As her stomach swooped within her she heard Huy’s voice again, raised in a shriek of despair as he called her name.

‘Tanith!’

She struck the surface of the pool with such force that all life was crushed from her, and the heavy ornaments plucked her beneath the limpid waters so swiftly that Huy saw only the brief gleam of gold deep down as though a great fish had turned upon its side to feed.

Manatassi crossed the great river in the winter of the Opet year 543. He used the cooler weather to carry his armies through the valley where the water was at its lowest levels. He crossed with three armies of varying sizes. The smallest, a mere 70,000 warriors, crossed in the west and overwhelmed the garrisons there. They drove swiftly for the western shores of the lake of Opet where the narrow waterway drained the lake and gave access to the ocean for the galleys of Opet. It was called the River of Life, the artery that fed the heart of Opet.

Manatassi’s impis severed the artery, freed the slaves employed at dredging the channel and slaughtered the garrison and slave-masters. Most of Habbakuk Lal’s fleet was drawn up on the beach careened for cleansing of the hulls. The galleys were burned where they lay and the sailors thrown alive on the fires.

Then Manatassi’s war captain blocked the channel. His warriors, and the tens of thousands of freed slaves tore down a small granite hill which stood beside the River of Life, and dumped it into the narrowest stretch of the river, rendering it impassable to any vessel larger than a canoe. This was a labour comparable with the construction of the great pyramid of Cheops, and it effectively sealed off the city and population of Opet from the outside world.

At the same time a second larger army crossed in the east, swept unhindered through the territory of the Dravs and burst like a black storm on the hills of Zeng.

The third and largest army, nearly three quarters of a million strong, surged across the river at Sett. Manatassi commanded them in person and he chose the crossing place as a gesture.

Marmon hurried to oppose him with his single legion of 6,000 men and was crushed in a swift and bloody battle. Marmon fled the field and died on his own sword amidst the burning ruins of Zanat.

Manatassi placed his centre across the road to Opet and rolled along it. His front was three miles wide and twenty deep, a multitude whose own bulk reduced the march to a stately progress.

Manatassi swept the land. He took no prisoner, neither man nor woman nor child. He took no loot, burning cloth and book and leather, smashing pot and cup, throwing it all upon the funeral pyre of a nation. The buildings he burned, and then threw down and scattered the hot stone slabs.

As his hatred fed upon this destruction so it seemed to grow, like the very flames he lit, it burned higher the more was heaped upon it.

The total fighting strength of Opet was nine legions. Of these one had died with Marmon in the north, and two others were hacked to pieces upon the terraces of Zeng, the survivors holding out in a dozen besieged fortresses upon the crest of the hills.

With the remaining six legions Lannon Hycanus marched from Opet to meet Manatassi. They came together 150 miles north-east of Opet, and Lannon won a victory which gained him two miles of territory and one day’s respite - but which cost him 4,000 dead and wounded.

Bakmor, who commanded Legion Ben-Amon in the absence of the High Priest, came to Lannon’s tent upon the battlefield when the sky still glowed like a furnace from the cremation fires, and the stench of scorching flesh spoiled what little appetite for food that battle fatigue had left.

‘The enemy left 48,000 dead upon the field,’ Bakmor reported exultantly, and Lannon saw he was a young man no longer. How the years had sped away. ‘We took twelve for each of ours,’ Bakmor went on.

Lannon looked up at him, sitting on his couch while a physician dressed a minor wound in his arm, and he saw that dried sweat and blood had stiffened Bakmor’s hair and beard and that there were new lines and shadows in the handsome face.

‘How soon can you fight again?’ Lannon asked, and the shadows around Bakmor’s eyes deepened.

‘It was a hard day,’ he said. Legion Ben-Amon had held the centre firm during those desperate hours when it seemed the line must sunder at the pressure of black bodies and darting steel.

‘How soon?’ Lannon repeated.

‘In four or five days.’ Bakmor told him. ‘My men are weary.’

‘It will be sooner than that,’ Lannon warned him.

They fought again the following day, a battle as desperate and as costly as the other. Again Lannon won a heavy victory, but he could not hold the field and he must leave over a thousand of his wounded to the hyena and jackal while he fell back to a new defensive line of hills.

They fought again five days later, and five times more in the next seventy days. At the end of that time they were encamped twenty Roman miles from Opet, and Lannon’s six fine legions had shrunk to three.

It mattered not that they had won eight great battles, and that they had slain almost 200,000 of the enemy. For Zeng had fallen, only a handful of warriors winning through to describe its fate. The towns were burned and razed to the ground, the gardens cut down and burned also. The mines of the middle kingdom were destroyed, the slaves freed to join Manatassi’s horde and the shafts blocked with earth and rock.

The channel of the River of Life was choked with rock, there was no escape upon Habbakuk Lal’s galleys now, and from east and west new armies marched to reinforce Manatassi’s drive on Opet.

Despite the toll that Lannon had taken from the armies of Manatassi, they seemed unaffected in number or determination. Each time Lannon planted his standards and stood to dispute Manatassi’s advance, fresh hordes poured forward to attack him. Though he cut them down by the tens of thousands, they bled his own legions and left them each time more exhausted and with despair more deeply corroding their fighting spirit.

On the seventy-first day one full legion, 6,000 men, stabbed their officers in the night and scattered away into the darkness in small groups. Stopping only to pick up their women from the villages around Opet, they disappeared into the south.

Bakmor pursued them a short distance and dragged a hundred of them back in chains to face Lannon’s wrath. They were all men of mixed Yuye blood, one class above that of freed slave, the lowest type of citizen allowed the privilege of bearing arms for the king. It seemed they did not count the privilege dear. Made bold by the certainty of execution, their spokesman told the king:

‘If you had given us something to fight for, some station above that of dog, we might have stayed with you.’

Lannon had the man scalded to death with boiling water for his insolence, and retired his two remaining legions on the city.

They camped upon the lake shore without the city wall and Lannon looked to the north in the night and saw the bivouac fires of Manatassi’s army spread like a field of yellow Namaqua daisies upon the hills. Manatassi was pressing him hard.

Bakmor found the king on the outskirts of the camp, watching the enemy positions. He approached Lannon eagerly bearing the first good news they had received in many long days.

‘There is word of Huy Ben-Amon, Majesty.’ And Lannon felt a lift of his spirits.

‘Where is he? Is he alive? Has he returned?’ Lannon demanded. It was only now he admitted to himself how he had missed the little priest. He had not seen him since Huy had run out of the cavern of Astarte in the midst of the ceremony of the Fruitful Earth.

Although Lannon had conducted a diligent search, even offering a reward of 100 gold fingers for information about him, Huy had disappeared.

‘Has he returned?’ How many times in the long nights since then had Lannon longed for his companionship, his counsel and his comfort.

How often in the din of the battle had he listened for Huy’s cry ‘For Baal!’ and the song of the great axe.

How often had he wished that he could stiffen a crumbling centre or check a pivoting flank with the priest’s presence.

‘Where is he?’ demanded Lannon.

‘A fisherman saw him. He is out on the island,’ said Bakmor.

The days had drifted past in a haze of grief. Huy had lost count of them, one slid so easily into the next. Most of the time he spent working on the scrolls. He had brought all five of the golden books with him and when he was not in the hut he kept them buried beneath his sleeping mat.

He wrote exclusively of Tanith, of his love for her and her death. In the beginning he worked through the nights as well as the days, but then he used up the last of the oil for the lamp and he spent his nights wandering along the beach and listening to the low surf hiss and growl upon the sands, and the wind across the lake rattle the palm fronds.

He lived on the freshwater clams and a few fish that he took in the shallows, and he grew lean and unkempt; his beard and hair tangled and uncared for.

His grief showed in his eyes, making them wild and haunted, half mad and uncaring for anything but his own loss. Many of these hopeless days passed before anger and resentment began to work within him. From deep within him rose thoughts dark and dangerous as the shapes of killer sharks rising to the smell of blood.

Brooding over a smoky cooking fire he thought about his land and his gods. It seemed to him that both of them were cruel and greedy. A land devoted to the accumulation of wealth, counting not the toll in human suffering. Frivolous gods demanding the sacrifice, both of them greedy and devouring.

Huy left the fire and went down to the lake shore. He sat in the sand and the water ran up and tugged at his ankles before sliding back. The dark thoughts persisted, and mingled with them were the memories of Tanith.

He pondered the gods who would choose for the sacrifice the beloved of their faithful servant. What more did they demand of him, he wondered. He had given them everything he held dear, and still they wanted more.

How cruel that they should choose Lannon as the instrument to strip him of his love. He wished now that he could have told Lannon about Tanith. If Lannon had known of their love he would have protected her, Huy was sure of this. In the beginning he had hated Lannon, for it was he who had named Tanith as the sacrifice. Then reason had prevailed with Huy. He realized now that Lannon had acted in good faith. He had known nothing of Huy’s and Tanith’s relationship. He had known only that the nation was in dire danger and a valuable messenger was needed. Tanith was a natural choice then, reluctantly Huy saw that this was so, and knew that he would have done the same.

He no longer hated Lannon, but suddenly he found himself hating those who had forced him to it. The gods - the merciless gods.

Out of the lake great Baal rose in all his splendour of glittering gold and red, and across the waters he could see the rosy cliffs and towers of Opet glowing on the horizon.

From lifelong habit Huy rose to his feet and spread his arms in the sun sign, and he opened his mouth to sing the praise of Baal.

Suddenly he was shaking with anger. He felt fiery gusts of it rising through his soul, setting his hatred alight, the funeral fire on which his faith perished.

‘Damn you!’ he shouted. ‘What more do you want of me, you eater of flesh? How much longer must I be your plaything?’

Now his fists were clenched as he shook them in defiance at the rising sun, his face contorted and his tears streaming down into the wild bush of his beard. He walked forward into the lake.

‘How much longer must I feed your cruel appetite, man-killer? How many more innocents before you quench your monstrous lust for blood?’

He dropped to his knees in the wet sand, and the running waters surged about his waist.

‘I reject you!’ he shouted. ‘You and your bloodless mate. I want no more of you - I hate you. Do you hear me, I hate you! ’

Then he fell silent, and bowed his head. The water surged softly about him and after a while he scooped handfuls of it and washed his face. Then he rose and walked back to the hut above the beach. He felt a sense of fateful release, the peace which follows an irrevocable decision. He was priest no longer.

He ate a piece of smoked fish and drank a bowl of lake water, before he began work on the scrolls.

Again he wrote of Tanith, trying to recall every tone of her voice, every smile and frown, the way she laughed, and the way she held her head - as though he could give her immortality in words, as though he could give her life for the next 1,000 years in words cut into a sheet of imperishable gold.

Once he looked up from the scroll with peering shortsighted eyes and saw that the day was passing, and the long shadows of the palms cast tiger-stripes upon the yellow sands of the beach. He stooped again to the scroll and worked on.

There was the crunch of a footstep in the sand outside the hut, and a dark shape blocked out the light.

Again Huy looked up, and Lannon Hycanus stood in the doorway.

‘I need you,’ he said.

Huy did not reply. He sat hunched over the scroll blinking up at Lannon.

‘It was on this island that you promised me you would never desert me,’ Lannon went on softly. ‘Do you remember?’

Huy stared at him. He saw the deep lines of care and suffering cut into Lannon’s flesh, the dark shadowed eye sockets in the gaunt face. He saw the greyish tone of the skin and the silver glint of old man’s hair in the beard and at the temples.

He saw the wounds half healed, and freshly weeping through the linen bindings. He saw a man who was extended to the limits of his strength and determination, and in whose throat was the bitter taste of defeat.

‘Yes,’ said Huy. ‘I remember.’ He stood up and went to Lannon.

They came back to Opet in the early morning. All night they had sat together beside the fire in Huy’s hut and they had talked.

Lannon told him of the course of the campaign, and the state of the nation. He told him of each battle, every strategy the enemy had employed.

‘I had placed much reliance upon the war elephants. That trust was ill-founded. We lost most of them in the very first encounter. They used spears dipped in the poison taken from countless bees. I learned from a prisoner how they had smoked out hundreds of hives and laboriously squeezed out the poison sack from each sting. The burning pain of the wounds drove my elephants insane. They raged through our lines, and we had to use spikes on them.

‘Also they had trained athletes who could vault onto the elephants’ backs. They half leapt and were half thrown by their companions, flipped through the air like professional tumblers to kill the drivers and then stab the beast in the back of the neck.’

‘I was to blame for that,’ said Huy. ‘I told him of those tactics that the Romans used against Hannibal’s elephants. He has not forgotten a single word of my teaching.’

Lannon went on to tell Huy of each battle which, though victorious, left Opet weakened, of the slow retreat before the black hordes, of the mounting despair amongst the legions, of the desertions and mutinies, of the destruction of the greater part of the fleet upon the beaches and the blocking of the channel.

‘How many ships remain?’

‘Nine galleys,’ Lannon replied, ‘and an assortment of fishing craft.’

‘Enough to carry all of us across the lake, to the southern shores?’

‘No,’ Lannon shook his head. ‘Not nearly enough.’

They talked on through the night, and in the dark hour before the first glimmer of dawn Lannon asked the question that had hovered on his lips all evening. He knew Huy would expect it.

‘Why did you desert me, Huy?’ Lannon asked softly. If Huy were to believe that Lannon knew nothing of his relationship with the witch, if he were to believe that Lannon’s choice of sacrifice was accidental, then Lannon must pretend ignorance.

Huy looked up at the question and the firelight lit his face from below, leaving his eyes as dark pits.

‘You do not know?’ he asked, watching Lannon intently.

‘I know only that you called out the witch’s name, and then you were gone.’

Huy went on studying Lannon’s face in the firelight, searching for some sign of guilt, some flicker of deceit. There was none. Lannon’s face was tired and strained, but the pale eyes were direct and steadfast.

‘What was it, Huy?’ he insisted. ‘I have puzzled over it so often now. What drove you from the temple?’

‘Tanith. I loved her,’ said Huy, and Lannon’s expression changed. He stared at Huy for long seconds, appalled and stricken.

‘Oh, my friend, what have I done to you? I did not know, Huy, I did not know.’

Huy dropped his gaze to the fire, and he sighed.

‘I believe you,’ he said.

‘Pray Baal’s forgiveness for me, Huy,’ whispered Lannon and leaned across to grip Huy’s shoulder, ‘that I should ever have given you grief.’

‘No, Lannon,’ Huy answered. ‘I shall never pray again. I have lost my love, and denied my gods. Now I have nothing.’

‘You still have me, old friend,’ said Lannon, and Huy smiled shyly at him.

‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘I still have you.’

They carried the golden scrolls and the vulture axe down to the beach where Bakmor and the crew of the fishing-boat waited patiently, and they came to Opet in the early morning.

The legions cheered them, king and priest, as they moved through the encampment and Huy felt tears scalding his eyelids.

‘I do not deserve it,’ he whispered. ‘I deserted them. I should have been with them.’

Although the two legions were reconstituted from the shattered remnants of the original nine, yet it seemed to Huy they were built around the foundation of Legion Ben-Amon. Everywhere he saw the familiar faces, grinning affectionately at him out of the ranks. He stopped to talk with them, trying to keep his tone cheerful as he noted the dented armour and the roughly bound wounds, half healing or suppurating.

He saw how exhausted they were, an exhaustion of the soul as well as the body. The smiles were short-blooming and the cheers were forced from reluctant throats - yet they were in hand, and there was fight left in them. They were lucky that none of the fevers that so often attended an encamped army had not yet weakened them further. It was strange how when they moved regularly, not staying at any one place long enough to foul the water supply or to allow their dung heaps to fester, then the fevers often did not appear.

There were 26,000 men encamped upon the lake shore, and they made a brave show. Huy felt small flames of confidence and hope warming his belly as he passed amongst them. Perhaps there was still something that could be done with this force.

Lannon and Huy ate the noon meal with their officers. There was no shortage of corn or meat or wine so close to the granaries of Opet, and they feasted and toasted each other while their men enjoyed the double wine ration that Lannon had ordered. In the afternoon Lannon allowed the wives into the camp. This was a privilege usually granted only after a great victory, not before a battle. They came streaming out of the city in their thousands, many of them wives for a day -to more than one husband.

‘Let them enjoy it,’ Lannon remarked with a little regret in his voice, as they strode through the camp with an escort of officers and picked legionaries. ‘The gods know well that it may be the last time any of them do so.’ Then his voice hardened. ‘But see to it that none of the women remain after sundown’

There was a desperate quality to the mass matings, as though life was trying to insure its survival on the eve of extinction. As though in the motions of love the morrow’s slaughter might be discounted.

Lannon left them to their frenzy and led his party out of the camp at a trot, the easy ground-devouring gait of a legion in forced march. Lannon led them to a spur of high ground which jutted out from the cliffs to overlook the lake shore for twenty miles in each direction. They stayed for many hours, watching Manatassi’s hordes debouch from the passes of the cliffs onto the gently sloping lake shore. They watched mainly in silence, for it was a sight to strike ice into the souls of the bravest men.

It was as though a nest of black pythons was uncoiling, flowing outwards in long thick columns. It seemed endless, this massing of men; this stretching and bunching of primeval forces. It seemed as inevitable and undeviating as the tides of the sea, or the march of black storm clouds across a summer sky, and in the face of it they were silent and subdued.

Manatassi went into camp upon the lake shore with his vanguard only five miles from Lannon’s own camp. However, the rear of his army had not yet emerged from the hills, and the plain between was thick with his regiments. There was no end to his numbers, no chance of counting them, for they knew not where his columns ended.

Lannon and Huy went down from the high ground in the dusk. The star of Astarte was a bright prick of light in the indigo sky above Opet. Huy averted his eyes from it.

They went to the harbour and watched the embarkation of the women and children upon the remaining galleys of Habbakuk Lal. They would lie off-shore during the night, and the following day until the battle was decided. If the day went against Opet, as Huy knew it must, then they would be taken across the lake and would strike southwards in an attempt to stay ahead of Manatassi. The men who survived would follow as best they might.

There was not room for all of them aboard the galleys, so the royal and noble women went first, followed by the priestesses and the merchant families. At one stage there was an ugly and fierce moment when a mob of the Yuye women and classless ones tried to rush the harbour and find seats aboard the ferries. They were clubbed down and driven back by Habbakuk Lal’s sailors. Huy felt a deep pity for them as they screamed and covered their heads with their hands against the spear butts. One of them, a young Yuye girl, sat dazed upon the flags of the wharf with her head bowed over the baby in her lap and the blood flowing down the ropes of her long black hair to form a dark shadow on the stone.

Lannon took leave of his wives and the children on the deck of Habbakuk Lal’s flagship. He was remote and dignified as each woman came to kneel briefly before him. The children followed their mothers, and Lannon barely glanced down at them.

The twins had grown into marriageable young women now. Pretty and vital with long blonde hair plaited and roped. They came to kiss Huy for the last time, and his voice was husky as he said his farewells. The younger children were unaware of the gravity of the moment, and they were tired and petulant, squabbling amongst themselves or squalling in their nurses’ arms.

Lannon and Huy were rowed back across the black waters on which the reflected fire-flies of torchlight danced. The crowds upon the wharf were massed and silent, opening reluctantly to give them passage through, and Huy detected a sullenness close to open hostility. The escort closed in about them and they hurried through the streets of the city towards the encampment.

There were bonfires burning in the streets and about them drunkenness and revelry as the lowly citizens of Opet snatched a few last hours of pleasure before the dreaded morrow. The revels were more wild and grotesque than even those of the religious festivals. Men and women danced naked in the leaping firelight, or lay in puddles of their own vomit besotted with drink, while others rutted unashamedly in open view.

Huy saw a woman reeling drunkenly past them with her tunic torn and stained with red wine hanging in tatters from pale shoulders, and one breast protruding, round and fat with a big copper-coloured nipple. She tripped and fell into one of the fires, her hair exploding in a flare of orange flame.

In the shadows and dark lanes scurried other shapes, bowed under heavy burdens, and Huy knew that the looters were already at work, plundering the empty homes of the rich. Huy knew that his own slaves would still be protecting his house, but none the less he felt a pang of alarm as he remembered the golden books.

‘Majesty, grant me an hour,’ he said as they came abreast of the turning that led down to his house beside the lake.

‘What is it, Huy?’ Lannon demanded irritably. ‘There is still much to do, and we must rest. What is it that demands your time?’

‘I must take leave of my household. My slaves must be released from their duties and my valuables hidden, especially the scrolls — the golden scrolls.’

‘As you will,’ Lannon conceded bad-temperedly. ‘But do not waste time. Return as soon as you can.’

The old slaves could not understand Huy’s dismissal. ‘This is our home,’ they pleaded. ‘Do not drive us out.’ And Huy could not explain. He left them there sitting huddled together in the kitchens, bewildered and afraid.

With one of the younger slaves to help him, both of them bowed under the immense weight of the scrolls, Huy crossed the temple of Baal and went through the cleft into the cavern of Astarte. It was silent and deserted. The priestesses were all aboard the galleys in the harbour. Huy paused beside the pool and looked down into its depths.

‘Wait for me, my love,’ he said. ‘I will follow close behind you. Keep a place for me at your side.’

He crossed the audience hall of the oracle and found the officers of the temple guards in the chamber beyond. They greeted him joyfully.

‘We had heard you were dead, Holiness.’

‘Is our duty still at this post, Holy Father?’

‘Release us from the temple, Holiness. Let us fight at your side.’

They helped him place the scrolls in the pottery jars and seal them with the golden tablets. Then they carried them through into the archives and placed them upon the stone shelves, hidden by a row of the larger jars.

Huy led the four officers and one hundred men of Legion Ben-Amon back through the city to the camp of the army, leaving the temple unguarded, and Lannon greeted him with relief.

‘I doubted you would return, Huy. I thought the fates might keep us apart once more.’

‘I gave you a promise, Majesty,’ Huy reassured him. ‘See what I have for you.’ And he led him from the tent to show him the temple guard. One hundred of the finest warriors of Opet, worth as much as a cohort of Yuye troops. Lannon laughed.

‘Huy, my worker of miracles.’ Then he turned to the men and looked at them. They were fresh, their armour burnished and bright, and there was a fierce wolfish quality about them which contrasted with the battle weariness of the rest of Lannon’s army.

Lannon spoke to their officers. ‘You are mine own guard. When the battle begins, stay with me, close with me and Huy Ben-Amon.’ Then he dismissed them to eat and rest.

In the big leather tent Lannon and Huy planned the battle, deciding what formations to employ, working out the evolutions for every eventuality, while scribes wrote out the orders.

They were interrupted continually by officers and aides asking for orders, or reporting the movements of the enemy.

Rib-Addi came into the tent begging audience, dry-washing his hands, tugging nervously at his beard and whispering in his secretive book-keeper’s voice.

‘The treasury, Majesty. Should we not move it to a place of safety?’

‘Tell me what place is safe,’ Lannon snarled at him, looking up from the clay box in which he and Huy were studying the dispositions. ‘Nobody out there knows about the sun door. Leave the treasure where it is, it will remain there until we come for it.’

‘The guards have been withdrawn,’ Rib-Addi persisted. ‘It is not right—’

‘Listen to me, old man. It would require 1,000 men and ten days to remove that treasure. I have neither the men nor the time to spare. Go, leave us alone. We have more important matters to employ us now.’

Rib-Addi went, looking very distressed. What more important matters were there than gold and treasure?

Before midnight Lannon straightened up and ran his hands through his thick golden curls‘, now laced with silver. He sighed, and he looked ill and tired.

‘That is all we can do now, Huy. The rest is in the hands of the gods.’ He placed an arm about Huy’s shoulders and led him to the flap of the tent. ‘A bowl of wine, a breath of lake air - then sleep.’

They stood outside the tent, drinking together and a cool breeze came off the lake, fluttering the tassels upon the golden battle standards.

Something which Huy thought for a moment was a big brown dog sleeping curled against the side of the tent stirred at their voices. Then Huy saw it was the little bushman huntmaster Xhai, faithful as ever, sleeping at the opening of his master’s tent. He shook himself awake, grinned when he saw Lannon and Huy, and came to squat beside Lannon.

‘I have tried to send him away,’ said Lannon. ‘He does not understand. He will not leave.’ Lannon sighed. ‘It seems unnecessary that he should die also, but how can I force him to go.’

‘Send him on an errand,’ suggested Huy and Lannon glanced at him thoughtfully.

‘What errand?’

‘Send him to search for sign of the gry-lion upon the southern shores. He will believe that.’

‘Yes, he will believe that,’ Lannon agreed. ‘Tell him, Huy.’

In his own language Huy explained to the little yellow man that the king wanted to hunt the gry-lion once more. Xhai’s slanted yellow eyes crinkled and he grinned and nodded with delight, pleased to be of service to the man he considered a god.

‘You must go at once,’ Huy told him. ‘It is an urgent matter.’

Xhai clasped Lannon’s knees, bobbing his head, and then he rolled up his sleeping mat and vanished amongst the shadows of the camp. Once he had gone they were silent for a while until Lannon said, ‘Do you recall the prophecy, Huy?’

And Huy nodded, remembering it upon Tanith’s lips.

‘Who shall reign in Opet after me?’

‘He who slays the gry-lion.’

He remembered also the prophecy that followed.

‘What must I fear?’

‘Blackness.’

Huy turned and looked to the north where the great black beast crouched, ready to spring. Lannon’s thoughts paralleled his own.

‘Yes, Huy,’ he murmured. ‘Blackness!’ And then he drained his wine bowl and hurled it upon the watch fire. A spout of sparks flew upwards.

‘At the hand of a friend,’ he said, remembering the final prophecy. ‘We shall see,’ he said. ‘We shall see.’ Then he glanced at Huy and saw his face.

‘Oh, forgive me, old friend. I did not mean to add fuel to the fires of your sorrow. I should not have reminded you of the girl.’

Huy drank the last of his wine and threw the bowl upon the fire. He did not need to be reminded of Tanith, she was ever in his thoughts.

‘Let us rest now,’ Huy said, but his face was ravished with grief.

The shouting and the trumpets woke Huy, and his first thought was of a night attack upon the camp. He threw on his armour and snatched up the vulture axe, stumbling out of the tent still fumbling with the straps of his breastplate.

The night sky was aglow with a light like that of the dawn, but it was rising from the wrong direction, coming up out of the lake, lighting the towers and walls of Opet.

Lannon joined him, still half-asleep, cursing as he struggled with his armour and helmet.

‘What is it, Huy?’ he demanded.

‘I do not know,’ Huy admitted, and they stood staring at the strange light which grew brighter, until they could clearly see each other’s features.

‘The harbour,’ said Huy, understanding at last. ‘The fleet. The women.’

‘Merciful Baal,’ gasped Lannon. ‘Come!’ And they ran together.

Manatassi had taken the tubes from the beached galleys before he burned them. A little experimentation had shown him how they worked. It was a simple procedure, dependent mostly upon current and wind direction. He had carried the tubes overland, and installed them in the bows of a pair of captured fishing-boats, whose slave crew were skilled seamen and eager to join Manatassi.

The on-shore wind had suited his purpose ideally and carried the boats silently into the mouth of the harbour of Opet. He had personally gone aboard one of the boats and he stood now in the stern wrapped in a leopard-skin robe, watching with fierce and hungry eyes as the jets squirted upon the surface of the wind-chopped water and burst into flame.

Carried on the wind the flame swept into the harbour in a solid wall, roaring like a waterfall and lighting the sky with a false dawn.

Huy stood beside Lannon upon the wharf. The entire basin of the harbour was filled with tall yellow flame, roaring hungrily, the black smoke clouds blocking out the starry sky and rolling in thick evil-smelling billows across the city.

The galleys of Habbakuk Lal stood like islands in a sea of fire. The decks were crowded with the women and children of all the noble families of Opet, and their screams carried over the dull furnace roar of flame.

The watchers upon the shore were unable to offer any escape to them, they looked on helplessly while from the alleyways the lowly ones who had been denied passage hooted and screeched with laughter.

The flames caught upon the wooden hulls and the mooring lines, racing upwards to the crowded decks.

Like ants upon a piece of rotten firewood, they scrambled and milled aimlessly, until the circle of flame tightened about them and shrivelled them.

One of the galleys began drifting in towards the shore. Its anchor lines were burned through, and the wind pushed it so it turned and swung gently, its mast and rigging traced in outlines of yellow fire. Upon the high castle at the stern, clinging together with their blonde hair shining in the firelight, stood Helanca and Imilce, the twin daughters of Lannon Hycanus.

Before the galley touched the stone wall of the quayside, the flames had smothered it, and the girls were gone.

Manatassi watched intently, the firelight glinting on those fierce yellow eyes. When the last flames had died and only the burnt-out hulks of the galleys still smouldered, he lifted his iron hand in command. The two fishing-boats hoisted sail and bore out, close on the wind, northwards to where Manatassi’s army was stirring like an awakening monster in the dawn.

This was the mood in which to fight the last battle, this fine blend of sadness and anger, Huy thought as he strode with Lannon along the ranks. The sun was up, throwing long shadows on the pale brown grass of the plain. On their left stretched the cheerful azure of the lake, flecked with crests of white by the morning breeze. The water fowl flew low in loose V-formations, white against the cloudless blue of the high heavens. On their left rose the rugged rampart of the cliffs, touched with subtle shades of rose and pink and capped with dark green vegetation.

Huy, looking at lake and cliff, saw them only as points on which to anchor his flanks.

Ahead, in front of the walls, the land was open, with low scrub and a very few big shady trees; it sloped gently from cliff to lake shore, a Roman mile wide. It was a clear front from which no surprise could spring, although it undulated in a series of low rises like the swell of a sleepy ocean.

In their rear were the buildings and streets of the lower city, a maze of low clay walls and flat roofs, while further back rose the massive stone walls of the temple, and above them showed the tops of the sun towers.

This then was a good place in which to fight the last battle, this attenuated front with firm flanks and an open line of retreat.

Lannon strode along the ranks. There was a spring and purpose in his step that belied his tired eyes and grief-sick face; the face of a man who had seen his family burn to death while he stood by. Huy followed a pace behind him, walking with the long-legged crabbing gait which was so familiar to them all. The axe was on his shoulder, and the armour shaped to his bowed back was highly polished and sparkled in the sunlight. Bakmor and a group of officers followed him.

The legions were drawn up into their battle formations, and Huy could find no fault with the placing. The light infantry thrown out in a screen, each man armed with a bundle of javelins as well as his side arms. Behind them were placed the heavy infantry, big men armed with axe and war-spear, carrying a great weight of armour, these men were the backbones of the legions. When hard-pressed, the light infantry could retire through their ranks, and let the enemy spend themselves upon this solid reef of armour.

In the rear were the archers. Drawn up in neat blocks from which they could deliver massed flights of arrows over the heads of the infantry.

Behind them again were the baggage boys, ready with the bundles of fresh javelins and arrows, bags of cold meat and corn cakes, amphorae of water and wine, spare helmets, swords and axes, and those other items which the battle would expend or destroy.

At first Lannon’s procession along the ranks was in silence. The men at ease, resting on their weapons, many with their helmets removed, some of them munching a last mouthful of food, all of them with that surface calm of the veteran who has walked many times with old Dame Death, who knows well her whore’s face and the smell of her breath. Many of them still showed the recent marks of her claws upon their bodies, but there was no sign of fear on their faces, no shadows in their eyes.

Huy felt a humbleness when he met their steady gaze, a pride when one of them grinned and called out, ‘We’ve missed you, Holiness.’

‘It’s good to be back,’ Huy told him, and there was a growl of assent from those who heard him. Huy passed on, a ripple of animation followed him now.

Quick banter, in which Lannon and the officers joined.

‘Leave a few for us, Sunbird,’ a grizzled old centurion shouted.

‘I think there will be enough for all of us,’ Huy grinned at him.

‘Too many?’ another voice called out.

‘Not enough,’ Lannon answered. ‘For none of those who oppose us is named Ben-Amon.’

They cheered then lustily, and it was taken up all along the line from cliff to lake. New waves of sound and shouting followed them as they went to take their place at the centre of the line upon a rise of higher ground where they could see over the whole field.

Above their heads the standards stood, gaudy with gleaming gold and silken multi-coloured tassels, and at their backs the hundred men of the temple guard. Huy looked over the precisely laid-out cohorts with the sun sparkling on their helmets and weapons, and thought that these were good men with which to fight the last battle, good men in whose company to die.

He loosened his helmet and lifted it from his head, holding it in the crook of his arm.

‘Wine here!’ he called, and baggage boys came scampering to them with bowls and amphorae. It was the best of Huy’s own stocks, rich and red as the blood which would soon soak this field.

Huy saluted his officers with a raised bowl, then turned to Lannon. They looked at each other for a long moment.

‘Fly for me, Bird of the Sun,’ said Lannon softly.

‘Roar for me today, Lion of Opet,’ Huy answered him and they drank and broke the bowls and laughed together for the last time. The men about them heard them laugh, and taking courage from it they looked to the north.

Manatassi came in the middle of the bright hot morning. He came on a front that filled the plain from lake shore to cliff foot. He came singing with 500,000 throats, and the rhythmic slapping of bare feet and war rattles which rolled across the sky like the thunder of the heavens. He came in orderly ranks, spaced to give each man fighting space, but the rank behind pressed hard upon that ahead, ready to close any gap in the line, to show a solid unbroken front.

He came in rank upon countless rank, so there was no end to his advance, and the singing was deep and murmurous.

He came like the shadow of storm clouds moving stately and slow across the land, he came dark as night and numerous as the grass of the fields, and the singing took on a harsher more menacing sound.

Huy settled his helmet and tightened the strap. He untied the leather sheath from the vulture axe and watched Manatassi advance on a million moving legs like a single vast black animal topped with a froth of feather head dresses, and the spear blades sparkled like multiple insect eyes in the blackness.

He had never in all his life seen a sight to compare with Manatassi in his full power. This is a worthy foe with whom to fight the last battle, he thought, for there will be no dishonour in defeat by such a one.

Manatassi rolled on deliberately past the markers which Huy had placed on his front to measure the range; 200 paces, 150 - and the dust from a million stamping feet rose as a bank of fire-golden smoke over the horde, blanketing them so that they seemed to appear endlessly out of the moving shifting loom of it.

Huy felt his mouth drying out, and the tingle of his blood as it sped through his tensed body. He lifted the vulture axe high, and glanced left and right to make certain that each commander of the archery had seen the signal.

One hundred and fifty paces, the black tide washed towards him and the singing changed again, rising, shrilling into the blood trill, the high ululation as chilling as any sound Huy had ever heard. He felt the hair on his forearms and at the back of his neck come erect, and his bowels seemed to drop out of his body.

They came on still, trilling, stamping, drumming with spear on shield, head-dresses dipping and tossing, and Huy stood with his axe held aloft.

One hundred paces, and Huy brought down the axe and instantly the air was filled with the soft fluting, the whistle of the wings of wild duck at dusk.

The arrows rose and arched over and fell into them in thick dark flights like that of the locust, and a growl came out of the blackness, the growl of the beast, but it came on steadily into the javelins, seeming to pass through them unscathed for the gaps in the front were instantly filled and the fallen were hidden by the dense mass of bodies passing over them.

Huy’s light infantry melted away before this massive advance, falling back through the heavies behind them, and Manatassi rolled weightily into Huy’s front.

It seemed as though nothing could check it, it was too heavy, too wide and deep and strong. It must burst through this line of bright helmets.

Then unbelievably the blackness was no longer moving forward, but piling up on itself like a log jam in a river. The ranks pressing forward violated the fighting space of those in the van, catching them in a struggling mass, throwing them onto the prickly metal hedge that was Huy’s front line.

Suddenly it was drawing back, sucked away like the wave of the sea from a steep beach.

Immediately the javelin men advanced through the heavies to harass the retreat, while the cry of the centurions carried clearly to Huy as they repaired their line.

‘Close up here!’

‘Javelins here!’

‘Fill that gap!’

‘Men here! Men here!’

Manatassi drew back, and bunched, gathered himself like a humping wave and surged forward again, struck and pressed hard, gained a yard of ground and drew back again, gathered himself, started forward gaining momentum and crashing into Huy’s front once more.

At noon Lannon and Huy were forced from their vantage point, as the fighting surged about their feet. The standards moved back.

An hour after noon, Huy ordered the last of his reserves into the line, holding only the temple guard under his own hand in a bunch around the battle standards. Still the black waves burst upon the line with a terrible unvarying rhythm, like the ground swell of the ocean.

Huy gave them ground slowly, drawing back each time just enough to reaffirm his line. It was stretched so finely now, that it seemed each new rush of blackness must rip through it, but still it held.

Then they were into the lower City, fighting back along the streets, and Huy was cut off from visual contact with the battle as a whole. It was merely a narrow street plugged with a knot of legionaries, holding back a steady rush of black warriors.

For the first time that day Huy was drawn into the fighting. A small group of wild-eyed black men burst through the rank ahead of him; they were shiny with sweat and grease, their faces painted with stripes of white ochre, making them appear monstrous and unreal.

Huy cut them down quickly, and ordered a squad of the temple guard into the gap they had opened.

He knew then that the battle was out of his control. He and Lannon were isolated in a cell of fighting men, able only to direct those of their men within sound of their voices.

From some distant part of the field came an animal roar of triumph, and Lannon caught Huy’s shoulder and shouted into his ear, ‘I think they have broken through.’ And Huy nodded.

The set battle was over now. Huy knew that through many gaps in his shattered line the enemy was pouring. It would become a rout now. The miracle had not taken place - the last battle was lost.

‘Fall back on the temple?’ Lannon shouted the question and again Huy nodded. The army of Opet was no more, it was reduced to hundreds of isolated groups of desperate men locked shoulder to shoulder and back to back in their last fight, a fight from which there would be no surrender, from which death was the only surcease.

They gathered the temple guard about them, and moved back along the street, keeping a steady pace, close up and in hand, offering a solid carapace of shields to the enemy.

Manatassi’s hordes were in their rear now, between them and the temple. They had put fire into the lower city, and the flames were taking a swift grip. The streets through which Huy marched were choked with terrified citizens and groups of wild blood-spattered warriors. Huy drove through all of them, his shields locked in the testudo formation, immune to the press of black men at the rear and the greasy billows of black smoke which spread over him.

The main temple gate was open and undefended. The guards had fled, the temple enclosure was empty and silent. Huy and ten men held the steps, while Lannon had the gates swung closed, and at the last instant Huy raced back with his men through the closing gap.

They were resting on the bloody weapons, loosening helmets, wiping the sweat out of their eyes.

‘The east gate?’ Huy demanded of Lannon. ‘It is held? Did you send men to close it?’

Lannon stared at him with dismay, his silence answering Huy’s question eloquently.

‘You men!’ Huy picked a group with a quick wave of his arm. ‘Follow me.’ But it was too late. Across the temple enclosure black warriors were streaming through the smaller gate.

‘Testudo!’ shouted Huy. ‘Back to the cavern.’ They formed the tortoise again, and moved like an armadillo with metal scales across the enclosure while the warriors swarmed about them, unable to pierce the shell. Smoke from the burning city eddied about them, choking them, blinding them.

Suddenly the man beside Huy cried out and grabbed at his groin. Blood spurted out between his fingers and he dropped to his knees. The ground over which they were advancing was strewn with dead warriors cut down by the head of the tortoise. They had to step over them. Dozens of these bodies who had been feigning death came suddenly to life, rolling quickly onto their backs and stabbing up under the skirts of the men above them.

Huy shouted a warning, but it was in vain. The enemy were inside the body of the tortoise, leaping to their feet, thrusting and hacking about them, forcing Huy’s men to turn and defend themselves, exposing their backs to the warriors on the outside.

The tortoise disintegrated into a mob of individuals, and the black swarm poured over them as hiving bees.

‘With me!’ Huy gathered Lannon, Bakmor and a few others about him and they broke out of the mob in a tight bunch and raced for the cleft of the cavern. The smoke was thick and oily, choking them so they coughed as they ran. Huy swung the axe, cutting a path for them and five of them reached the entrance to the cavern but Bakmor had taken a thrust through the ribs. He pressed one fist to it, trying to staunch the flow of life blood. Huy changed the axe to his other hand, and helped Bakmor up the steps into the mouth of the cleft. His blood ran down Huy’s side, it felt hot and gelatinous. On the top step Bakmor stumbled to his knees.

‘It is finished, Huy,’ he choked, but Huy picked him up bodily and carried him into the entrance. He propped him against the wall of the cavern.

‘Bakmor,’ he panted, and pushed his head back to look into his face. Bakmor’s eyes looked back at him without seeing, dead and glazed. Huy let the handsome head drop forward, and stood up.

‘Here they come,’ shouted Lannon, and Huy hefted the axe and leapt to Lannon’s side to meet the first dark rush of bodies into the passage. The four of them - Lannon, Huy and two legionaries — held the entrance long enough to clog it with piles of dead warriors.

Then the archers came up and the first volley of arrows swept the passage. One of them struck a legionary in the throat, and he fell with a dark gush of blood from the mouth.

‘No cover in here,’ Huy shouted. ‘Back to the temple.’ They raced back along the passage, and the next volley whistled amongst them. One struck Huy’s helmet and glanced away to light sparks off the wall beside him, another found the seam in the last legionary’s breastplate and lodged in the bone of his spinal column. His legs collapsed under him. Desperately he clawed his way after Huy, dragging his crippled body by the sheer strength of his arms alone.

‘Your favour, my lord,’ he screamed, in terror of the castrating blade, the ripping of his bowels while he still lived. ‘Don’t leave me for them, Holiness.’

Huy checked his run, and shouted, ‘Go on, Lannon. I’ll follow you.’ He went back, and the legionary saw him coming.

‘Baal’s blessing on you, Holiness,’ he cried, and tore his helmet loose, bowing his head forward to expose the neck. ‘

‘Find peace!’ Huy told him, and cut his head from the trunk with a single stroke of the axe, turning to run again as he did so. An arrow hit Huy in the face below the eye, glancing off the bone and sliced him open to the ear, dangling there by the barb in the fleshy skin.

Huy tore it loose as he ran after Lannon. Together they crossed the cavern of Astarte, their footsteps echoing from the domed walls; skirting the still green pool, they reached the door of the temple as the next flight of arrows hummed around them. Lannon stumbled slightly, and then they were into the temple.

‘Can we hold them here?’ Lannon gasped.

‘No.’ Huy stopped to catch his breath. ‘The archives!’ Then he looked at Lannon. ‘What is it, Majesty?’

‘I also am hit, Huy.’ The arrow stood out of the joint of his armour near the left armpit. The angle of penetration was such that Huy felt a cold gust of despair. The arrowhead must lie close to the heart. It was mortal, no man could recover from a wound of that nature.

‘How is it?’ Lannon demanded.

‘There is no pain, Huy. It cannot be too bad.’

‘You’re lucky,’ said Huy, and snapped off the shaft, leaving a short stub protruding from the wound.

‘Come,’ he said, and with a gentle hand on Lannon’s arm led him back through the temple into the archives.

‘The sun door?’ Lannon asked.

‘Only at the very end,’ said Huy. ‘Only when all else fails.’ And he steered Lannon into one of the stone recesses.

‘Your face.’ Lannon stared at Huy in the uncertain light of the torches, as though he had noticed the gaping slash across his cheek for the first time.

‘No doubt it’s an improvement,’ Huy grunted as he tore a strip from his tunic and knotted it into a crude sling for Lannon’s left arm.

‘Can you use it?’ he asked and Lannon worked his fingers, opening and closing them.

‘Good,’ Huy nodded, and placed the tang of Lannon’s shield in his left hand. The sling would help support the weight of it.

Huy cocked his head, listening to the stealthy footsteps, the whispered voices and the clink of weapons within the temple of Astarte.

‘They are coming,’ he said. ‘It will not take them long to find the passage.’

As he spoke the first of them stepped through the entrance from the guard room, and peered into the archives. The wavering light of the smoky torches in their wall brackets emphasized the man’s size. He was huge and black, shiny with grease and paint, and Huy smelled him, a warm musky smell like that of a predatory cat.

Huy stepped out of the recess into the light, and in Vendi shouted a challenge at him. The warrior came bounding down the passage at Huy, and their shields came together with a clash that echoed through the temple.

Huy felt the spear blade sting his side, but the lance on the tip of the vulture axe bit in deep, touching bone, and the warrior slid down off the steel.

Lannon limped out of the recess and took his place on Huy’s left hand, they stepped over the shivering twitching corpse and went down the passage side by side to meet the rush of dark bodies that came at them.

Manatassi stood in the temple of Astarte. It was after midnight but there were many torches burning and the halls were crowded with warriors, so many that Manatassi had ordered the interior walls torn out of the building to give them access to the mouth of the tunnel.

The dark, evil-looking stone mouth which had already swallowed up so many of his men, was where the two fighting devils of Opet still held out, defying all his efforts to dislodge them. Even now they were dragging dead and badly wounded from the entrance. One of them had his right arm lopped off above the elbow. He made no sound as he clutched at the stump, but his eyes were huge and white in the torchlight.

Manatassi knew what weapon had inflicted that wound, and his anger and his hatred smouldered hotly, warring with the superstitious dread that gripped him.

He had learned enough about the gods of Opet while he was a slave to know their vast powers, their strengths and cruelties. He feared them, and he knew that he stood now in the stronghold of these terrible gods, in their holy place.

He remembered now hearing of this underground place beyond the temple of Astarte, he knew that a death curse guarded it.

Clearly this was the reason why they had taken sanctuary here, in this dark hole.

His anger cooled, chilled by religious awe. He knew the white gods were watching him. He wanted to end it now, destroy this place and go - however, two doomed but stubborn men defied him.

‘Fire!’ he said. ‘Smoke them from their den like wild dogs.’

They built the fire in the entrance of the tunnel, and fed it with green branches, and dense acrid smoke filled the temple and the tunnel. They ringed the tunnel entrance, coughing and choking in the smoke, and they held their weapons ready, knowing that no man could live in there. This must bring them out, surely - but an hour passed with no movement through the smoke.

The fire burned down into a smouldering pile of logs, and the smoke cleared gradually. Manatassi ordered it quenched with water from the pool, and once again they stared into the dark passage from which wisps and streamers of smoke still drifted.

The floor of the passage was still carpeted with the dead, but there was no sign of life.

Manatassi subdued his religious awe, and abruptly snatched a torch from the hand of one of his warriors. Holding it high above his head, he stepped over the hot and sizzling logs and into the passage.

He picked his way amongst the dead, and the floor was puddled and sticky with blood that clung to his bare feet. The torch threw yellow light into each of the stone recesses with their burdened shelves. Manatassi knew what the earthenware pots contained. He had assisted Huy often enough with the scrolls.

He looked for sign of him now, but there was none. Only the black bodies, and the empty recesses.

He reached the end of the passage and the torch lit the engraved image. Manatassi recognized it as the symbol of the sun god, and his courage melted at this tangible evidence of divine influence.

On the floor below the image something caught his eye, sparkling in the torch light.

He suppressed a gasp. It was the vulture axe, laid like an offering before the god image - and the place was empty.

They had gone to their gods. They had cheated him of his revenge, and led him into deadly peril, into a direct confrontation with supernatural forces.

Manatassi backed away, until the god image merged into the darkness and he turned and ran from the place into the hall of the temple of Astarte. There he looked back at the mouth of the tunnel.

‘Bring me masons from amongst the freed slaves. Seal off that entrance. It is evil. Seal it.’

They ran to obey, and Manatassi’s courage — his anger and his hatred - returned to him.

‘I will destroy this evil. I place a curse upon this place, upon these cliffs. A curse that will last for ever. His voice rose into a scream. ’Burn it. Burn it all. Destroy it. It is an evil to be cleaned from the earth and from the minds of men, for ever.‘

So the masons sealed off the entrance to the tomb of the kings. They worked with all the skill that the men of Opet had taught them, and when they were finished the entrance had vanished.

Then Manatassi destroyed the city. He slew every single living thing and threw them on the fires which raged through the lower city for many days. Then he looked at the walls and the towers, and he pointed with his iron claw. They tore it down block by massive block. The walls and the sun towers and the beautiful temple of Astarte. They went down to the very foundations. They lifted the flagged pavings. They tore out the stone wharves of the harbour. Working like a million ants they razed the city until no trace of it remained. They carried each block of masonry up to the cavern and dropped it into the bottomless green pool. They took the entire city and gave it to the goddess, and the pool was so deep - or the goddess so eternally greedy - that it was swallowed without a trace and the level of the green clear waters rose not a finger’s width.

When Manatassi marched from Opet, eastwards to complete the destruction of the empire, he left nothing behind him but piles of loose ash which the wind was already scattering in pale runs of dust.

Manatassi spread his regiments like a net across the four kingdoms, with the command to destroy all trace of the cities and the mines and the gardens built by the men of Opet. But his hatred had burned low now, like a forest fire when the trees are gone. The hatred had left him hollow and blackened and dying, his huge battered frame a husk, even the smoky yellow eyes dull and uncaring.

He came to Zimbao, the great walled city of the middle kingdom, and the men of Opet were dead. The city like his own body was untenanted, empty and deserted.

Manatassi wrapped himself in a fur kaross and lay down beside the watch fire, and in the morning his body was stiff and cold.

They buried him outside the walls, and then they quarrelled and fought, for Manatassi had named no successor. Each war captain named himself, and the army of Manatassi split into a hundred tribes.

In time Manatassi and the city of Opet faded from the memory of men.

When Xhai the bushman was an old man and he knew he was dying, he came back to Opet. The lake had vanished, its shores were twenty miles from the red cliffs and the waters were brackish and shallow and sunwarmed.

Xhai walked over the spot on which the temple of Baal had stood without recognizing it, until he saw the cleft in the red rock leading to the cavern of Astarte.

He camped beside the pool, building a small fire and sitting over it mumbling to himself in the manner of old men. When his memories paraded before him they were magnified and magnificent, and he sought to capture and fix them.

He picked up his belt on which were strung the little horn pots of pigment, each plugged with a piece of wood, and he went to the wall at the rear of the cavern.

He made the outline of the figure in charcoal upon the smoothest place of the wall. He worked slowly and carefully, with great love.

Then he mixed his pigment and began to paint the proud god-like figure with its white face, red-gold beard and majestic vaunting manhood, and as he worked it seemed as though ghost voices whispered deep in the rock, down in the vault of the kings.

‘Huy, I am cold. Favour me, old friend. Give me the hand of friendship that the oracle foresaw.’

‘I cannot, Lannon. I cannot do it.’

‘I am cold and in pain, Huy. If you love me, you will do it.’

‘I love you.’

‘Fly for me, Bird of the Sun.’

As the old man worked, the wind whispered and sighed along the cliffs, and the sigh was that which a man might make when he has lost his love and his land, has denied his gods and has given mercy to his friend. He might sigh like that as he takes the sword still dulled with his friend’s blood and sets the hilt firmly in a niche of the stone floor and places the point up under his ribs, and falls forward on it.

THE RAND DAILY MAIL

27th May

Death of Multi-Millionaire Financier

Louren Sturvesant Dies of Mystery Disease

BOTSWANA, SATURDAY. The well-known millionaire financier and sportsman, Mr Louren Sturvesant of Kleine Schuur, Sandown, Johannesburg, died here yesterday after a brief illness.

Mr Sturvesant was visiting the site of the recently discovered ancient Carthaginian city in Botswana. The leader of the expedition, Dr Benjamin Kazin, has also contracted the disease which is believed to be infectious.

Dr Kazin has been flown to Johannesburg where a hospital spokesman stated that his condition was critical.

THE FINANCIAL GAZETTE

28th May

Stop Press

Anglo-Sturvesant Crashes 97 Points

Panic on Exchange

HOLLARD STR. MONDAY. Following reports of the death of Mr Louren Sturvesant, Chairman of Anglo-Sturvesant, quoted prices of the Sturvesant Group of Companies fell sharply on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange today.

THE STAR

3rd June

Famous Archaeologist Regains

Consciousness

JOHANNESBURG, FRIDAY. After ten days in coma, Dr Benjamin Kazin today regained consciousness, according to a hospital spokesman.

Dr Kazin is the Director of the Institute of Anthropology and African Prehistory, and the discoverer of the ancient Carthaginian city of Opet. He was suffering from a rare fungus infection contracted while working on the site of his recent find.

Today Dr Kazin was visited by his assistant, Dr Sally Benator, who said afterwards that Dr Kazin was ‘very much better but still terribly upset by the death of Mr Sturvesant’.

THE STAR

6th September

Well-known Archaeologists Marry

CAPE TOWN, FRIDAY. The discoverer of the city of Opet, Dr Benjamin Kazin, was married to his long-time assistant, Dr Sally Benator, in a brief civil ceremony here today. The bride said that she planned a working honeymoon at the site of the ancient city of Opet.

THE TIMES

20th April

Archaeologist Honoured

LONDON, SATURDAY. At the Royal Geographical Society, an Extraordinary General Meeting of the Society was held today during which Dr Benjamin Kazin was awarded the Society’s much-prized Founder’s and Patron’s Medal.

After the meeting there was a short ceremony at which a portrait of Dr Kazin by the well-known artist Pietro Annigoni was hung in the Society.

Dr Kazin was accompanied by his wife, Dr Sally Kazin, formerly Benator, who is also a well-known figure in archaeological circles. The couple will spend two weeks holidaying in Britain and on the continent before returning to Africa.