“Father,” he said to the man appearing on the screen, “forgive me.”
The Pharaoh of Earth, swimming in copper robes, seated alone in a stone chair on the other side of the world, moved little when he spoke. His eyes were beads of white light in a room filled with shadows. He could’ve been Eadunn’s brother, for as much as the two men resembled one another.
But brothers, they were not.
“My son.” The Pharaoh clucked his tongue. “Everyone in my kingdom fears you. Cities tremble at the merest whisper of your name. Husbands cut out their wives’ hearts and slay themselves at sword-point rather than face your justice. But fear is not your mission. Laying waste to thousands is not why I have sent you into this world. You know this, do you not?”
Eadunn dropped his gaze to the grated metal floor. All things were dark save for the Pharaoh, whose wrath might’ve been invisible had Eadunn not long ago learned to read behind his father’s impossible calm.
“I know, Father. None of the small things matter. None, except for him.”
On the screen, thousands of miles away, the Pharaoh steepled his fingers. Eadunn felt his father’s disdain, the unspoken anger spreading out from the screen.
“Where?” the Pharaoh asked calmly.
“We tracked him to Fallen York.” Eadunn couldn’t look his father in the eyes. “He found an archive, and in it…the schematics for a vial-port. We didn’t think any had survived this long. We killed those who sold it to him.”
“What more?” His father’s voice filled the cabin.
“We learned his destination.” Eadunn met his father’s stare. “A city halfway across the continent. We put spies in place. But…he slipped in during the night. He killed my men, and had the vial-port installed. We fired a mini-bomb at the city. Everyone was slain…everyone except him. The fallout would’ve poisoned anyone who survived, but you know, Father. Like us—the radiation—he heals too quickly.”
Still, the Pharaoh hid his anger. Hands folded before his face, copper sleeves pooled in his lap, the Lord of Everything raised a single inquisitive eyebrow.
“Tell me this, my son, and I shall release you to your continued hunt. I have over ten-thousand eyes orbiting my kingdom. I possess an entire city dedicated to looking through those eyes. Night and day, day and night, they find every offender of our laws. They can see the tiniest tools in the hands of the smallest children. It matters not whether the skies are clear or the storms raging. Every machine, every device, they know.”
“Yes, Father.”
“And yet…and yet…he eludes our eyes. How is this possible? We should have found and killed him centuries ago. And yet never, not once have we ever seen him through our eyes in the stars. Explain this, my son. Explain to me how he walks unseen, plain as the sand, and we never see him.”
Eadunn had long wondered the very same thing. His father’s devices floating above the Kingdom of Earth could spot a sliver of contraband, no matter how small, from a thousand miles above the sand.
But the Prey had never been seen.
Not once.
Not ever.
“Father, if I knew this answer, I would’ve ended the hunt ages ago. I swear it to you. It’s sometimes as if…he’s a ghost.”
Finally, the Pharaoh’s perfect calm floated away. His mouth pulled into a tight line, and his robes shivered atop his body.
“It matters none,” he hissed at Eadunn. “You have your ship, the only one like it in the kingdom. You have your men, your weapons. Everyone in the world is afraid of the Nemesis. Everyone knows your name. Use these things. Find the Prey. If he has the vial-port, he’s too close. Lay your final trap and be rid of him. Do it…or I shall replace you with someone infinitely more…mortal.”
The screen flickered and went black.
On his knees in the darkness, the Nemesis reached up to touch the back of his neck. His fingertips grazed the metallic skin-port, which his father’s physicians had installed hundreds of years ago.
His fear?
If I should continue to fail, Father will never allow me to refill it.
He dressed in his black armor, which he’d polished to a perfect shine. He sealed his mask to his face, and his cape he pinned to his left shoulder. Emerging from his chamber, he strode down a narrow corridor and emerged in the cockpit, manned by four of his knights. Beyond the cockpit window, the stars burned in the blackness, and the clouds swept away beneath the nameless ship’s nose.
“Change direction,” he announced, and his voice startled his men, who hadn’t heard him enter.
Three of the four leapt to attention. They wore their armor, but no masks. The fourth pulled back on the ship’s throttle, slowing the giant vessel to a crawl across the night.
“The Pharaoh believes the Prey has found what he needs, and will now make his way west.” He stared at the three standing knights, his voice thunderous behind his mask. “He is truly dangerous now. He will want to cross the ocean and invade our laboratory on the Isle of Japas. We cannot allow this. Once and for all, we must destroy him.”
“Lord, what does he seek in Japas?” asked one of the knights.
“Something belonging to the Pharaoh.” The Nemesis faced the man, who paled in his shadow.
Another of the knights, his head appropriately bowed, dared to ask, “Lord, why should we think him dangerous? There are no ships he can take to Japas. We allow nothing larger than fishing dinghies. Everything else, we’ve destroyed.”
It was true, the Nemesis considered. For centuries, he had taken care to annihilate every ocean vessel large enough to cross either of the great seas. And yet some had always slipped through his net. Sail-ships, barges, and old world frigates were still out there, still floating.
I have only this warship, and no other.
How can I cover the entire kingdom?
“A bold question, and foolish.” He chastised the knight. “How many times have we believed all the world’s ships sunk to the ocean floor? And how many times has the Prey turned up on a far and opposite shore? He finds his way…every time. But the boats won’t matter if we sink him. Dead men don’t sail.”
The three standing knights lowered their gazes.
The fourth, still seated at the cockpit controls, spoke softly. “Lord, are we aborting our other missions? We have two machine sightings in the northern tundra, and a supply caravan has been sacked in Hindi Province. Where should we go?”
“Back,” he boomed.
“Back, Lord?”
“Back to the desolation west of Cedartown. Back to the Prey. He is our only mission now.”
He left the cockpit behind, his men shaken.
In his room, he felt the ship turn around.
* * *
Fully armored, the Nemesis crouched on a road destroyed many centuries ago.
The shapeless slag highway twisted through the black-sanded desert. To the east, it writhed away into nothing, vanishing like a mirage among the empty steppes. In the west, the great mountain city to which the highway led was glassed over, its trees turned to black toothpicks, its towers to giant steel skeletons.
And its people to dust.
The Nemesis rose. He felt little of the wind through his armor, but he knew its strength. Ever since he’d descended from the ship, the wind had tried to tear his cape from his shoulders. His knights’ armor was lesser than his, and they stood behind him, willing themselves not to bend.
Among the knights, the woman Thessia lingered in her shawl. The wind caught her dark fabrics and pulled them taut against her flesh, each piece of her shawl like a black flag dancing. She was alone out here, the only soft thing in the world, or so the Nemesis believed.
Her people…from the desert. They’ve waged battle against the wind since the beginning of time.
She looks almost at home.
He beheld mountains looming beyond Thessia, the peaks towering above the glassed-over city and the highways snaking across the sand.
I’ve been here before.
I’ve forgotten the city’s name.
“There.” He pointed to the mountains. “The Prey will go there, beyond the city. The valleys are easiest to travel, and the way to the west is clear and straight. He will be in a hurry. He will want to pass through the mountains before winter. Not even he will want to spend the cold season in a place such as this.”
He bent and dipped his armored palm into the sand beside the road. The black silicate dripped between his fingers and rained to the ground.
Rain.
Glass rain.
In the winter, the winds would be even stronger. The glass would be airborne, peeling the skin from anyone foolish enough to walk through it.
“Where shall we hide the ship, Lord?” said one of his knights.
“No hiding.” He shook his head. “Seven of you will stay here with me. The other eight will take the ship south. Another city lies there, smaller than this one, shadowed by mountains in the west and graveyards of forests in the east. You will hide the ship in the crags above the city, and yourselves in the burned forests. Look for the Prey. If he comes south, kill him. Thessia, you will go with them.”
The men were uncomfortable, he knew. He’d never sent the ship away before, and he’d never divided his crew.
If they had complaints, none dared speak them aloud.
But Thessia, eyes dark within her shawl, came to him.
“Lord, will you send me away?” She looked wounded. “We might wait months before the Prey arrives. Don’t you desire me nearer?”
Yes, he thought. Always.
“No,” he said. “Father will not allow failure. There can be no distractions.”
She glanced nervously to the surrounding knights.
“Will…I be safe?”
Were his men not present, he’d have gone to her. In the wind, with the sand pooling at his feet, he’d have lowered his mask and kissed her.
But she couldn’t know the depth of his feeling.
And neither could his men.
“Go,” he grunted. “The pilot has the coordinates. When you arrive, wait on the ship until the men clear the area. There will be Habiru bandits. If they catch you, they won’t be gentle.”
She hung her head. With the others, she retreated toward the ship, which rested in the sand, blacker even than the ruined earth, vast against the evening sky. She walked past crates of supplies, which three knights were withdrawing from the ship’s innards and stacking on wheeled carts.
She looked back at Eadunn.
And he watched her climb the stairs into darkness.
Once she and eight knights had vanished into the ship, the others emerged. These seven were fully armored—swords, knives, and darker weapons dangling from their belts and shoulders. A roar and a cloud of dust erupted behind them, and the ship rose into the air.
The Nemesis watched it go, a black dagger wounding the coming night.
And all was silent.
The knights looked to him. Their masks were in place, but he knew their question.
Is it time?
Yes.
Each of the seven knights manned a wheeled cart loaded with supplies. The Nemesis strode ahead of them, and they fell in at his back, pulling the carts down the long, dark highway to the glassed-over city.
The next moments would be deadly, he knew.
Before landing, they’d seen bandits hiding at the city’s edge, lurking in crumbling towers, skulking through the shadowed ruins.
There had been at least twenty, dressed in swirling robes, faces hidden behind half-masks.
Twenty, we saw.
But likely hundreds.
“Scans showed no machine weapons,” said one knight. “They could be hiding contraband inside the towers.”
“Our orders, Lord?” said another.
He stopped dead on the highway. The city, a graveyard of glass and twisted steel skeletons, was several thousand yards away.
“We won’t have time to check for contraband.” His voice thundered through his mask. “Three-hundred yards out, leave the carts. Standard formation. Full weapons-use granted.”
Behind their masks, he knew they were grinning. They loved nothing more than using their toys.
The knights marched on. Three-hundred yards from the graveyard city, the Nemesis raised his fist. The seven knights abandoned their black-steel carts on the glass road and fanned out into the desolate plain.
Their swords were still tucked away in their scabbards.
In their hands?
Flat ebon discs, twice the diameter of their palms, hollowed in the center to fit their fingers.
Scimitars, their makers had named the simple-looking devices.
Capable of killing hundreds within seconds.
In the dusk-light, the knights spread out across the sands. They were methodical, closing in on the dead city’s outermost towers without haste. The only sounds they made were the soft crunches of their armored feet against the black silicate dust.
Still alone on the highway, the Nemesis walked in a straight line for the city’s main avenue. Twisted beams of rusted, blackened steel lay strewn across the streets ahead.
But the towers hadn’t fallen that way.
No.
The bandits—the Habiru—had strewn the wreckage across the streets on purpose. They wanted no one coming in…no one getting out.
He arrived at the city’s edge. Two towers, which centuries ago must’ve been grand structures meant to welcome people to the city, rose up on the road’s either side. The hollow, gutted things stood against the coming night like wraiths.
Haunted by the Habiru.
He reached behind himself, tugging his Scimitar disc loose from its resting place between his shoulders. The slender thing was black matte on one side, shining obsidian on the other. Looking at the weapon, he wondered how many lives he’d taken with it.
I must never count.
The moment he fitted the weapon into his fingers, he heard the arrow’s whistle. It came from one of the skeleton towers, but he didn’t see it until it clattered on the ground beside him. He peered up into the violet sky and saw the Habiru man lurking on a steel beam three stories up.
The Habiru man nocked a second arrow in his steel bow.
And fired again.
The Nemesis watched the arrow soar through the dusk. He didn’t move, not when the dart hit him squarely in his chest-plate, not when it splintered into fragments in the sand.
He heard the Habiru utter a curse. The man, cloaked in grey, slung the bow over his shoulders and slid down a steel beam toward the street.
Calm, barely breathing behind his featureless mask, the Nemesis raised his Scimitar disc and pointed its polished obsidian face at the tower. The Habiru man had almost slid to street level when the steel slab beneath him vaporized.
First, the steel.
Then, the man.
Where the Habiru had been, ashes swirled into the air, joining the black sands below.
There was no sound.
The glassed-over city would be his.
The Habiru would be ashes.
7
Under the grey afternoon sky, Galen knelt on a swift river’s shore.
He had to admit—he hadn’t seen such clean water in a long, long while. Five-hundred years might’ve been long enough for the river to cleanse itself of the fallout.
Maybe.
He was glad it didn’t matter.
At least, not to him.
Elia, who’d followed him over hills, through valleys, and across endless flat plains, ambled up to the shore. He shook his head when she knelt beside him.
A whole country full of rivers, he thought. And she picks this one.
Persistent, this one.
“How many of your pills are left?” He shot her a smirk. “Five? Ten? What will you do when you run out?”
A momentary shadow passed over her face.
“What’s it like?” She pulled out her canteen, drank what little water was
left, and dipped it beneath the river’s surface.
“You mean not having to worry,” he said.
“Yes.” She dropped an iodine pill into her canteen. “That.”
For the hundredth time since he’d met her in the east many weeks ago, he looked at her face. She was young, so very young.
It annoyed him. He didn’t know why.
“You must think it’s easy,” he said. “So fucking easy. Imagine it from my perspective—everyone is a child. I live without fear of death, but my whole life I’m running from murderers. Ironic, right? So the water won’t kill me…or the dirt…or the long, long nights. But I’m not safe from you, little one. Not you or all the rest of humanity. Maybe you’re the lucky one. No one calls you the Prey. The Black Habiru. The Ghost. You get to die when you’re supposed to.”
If his words injured her, she didn’t say. She blinked her big golden eyes at him and gazed out across the river.
Skin’s thicker, he thought.
Might wait to kill her, after all.
He’d had his chance. For the last fifteen days, she’d dropped off to sleep each night in the dirt, in the sand, on beds of weeds and brittle grass. He’d begun to consider the possibility she hadn’t lied about her family’s oath to protect him. That maybe, just maybe, she’d learned how to survive the desolate wilderness as a result of vigorous training by her mother and sisters.
A Sisterhood. Dedicated by my mother to protect me.
He’d wrestled with the idea.
He’d considered killing her all the same. Painlessly, of course.
Or leaving her in the night.
Or guiding her toward a Habiru village, in which he could trade her for another few weeks of food.
Damnit.
“How did you get across the ocean?” he asked her after a long silence.
“Pardon?” She looked at him.
“You’re not from this place,” he said. “You’re from the far east. Or the far west. Depending on which ocean you crossed.”
“Is it so obvious?” she asked.
Yes, he wanted to say.
The way you walk in the sand.
Your voice. Your accent.
Your eyes. The way you hide them from the sun.
Lords of the Black Sands Page 5