Gate of the Gods: Book 5 of The Windows of Heaven

by K. G. Powderly Jr.

  T’Qinna no longer had strength left even to weep as this new sword plunged into her heart. In withering silence, she pleaded inside for her children to E’Yahavah, but only felt hope implode into engulfing despair. Nevertheless, she chose to trust the God of her husband, and his father. It did not stop the implosion, but the fact that she could still choose it sat as a golden weight, placed into her heart from above, that kept the current of the new Dark Age from sweeping her into the void.

  Palqui limped toward his son, who easily evaded him.

  “You’re all worn out!” Raqu snarled. “Your old God has been overthrown by new ones; you’re just too blind to see it! You look down on everyone else just because they’re different, but you’re the real problem!”

  Palqui said, “Not because they different, Son, but because they not speak truth. Go. You’ll find out, only emptiness they offer.”

  The young father hung his head, as if caught by his conscience. He looked to his wife briefly, then said, “Hurry up and get to the forest! I’ll speak to Syruq. We won’t tell the armies where you went.” Raqu and his family then turned back for the inner village.

  Lomina began to weep convulsively as her husband went to her—both for leg support, and to prevent her from collapsing when they needed to flee.

  T’Qinna followed the tiny knot of faithful people silently out of White Rock, southeastward, into the darkening night. Thunder rumbled in the north as rainclouds approached.

  The new “gods” could see to the burial of their fallen mouthpiece.

  158

  The Monster transmitted out of Qe’Nani’s collapsing carcass before it hit the ground, satisfied that it had fulfilled its mission. The suggestions aimed at both the Leopard Woman and the Enemy’s supposed “man of the hour” had hit each target directly in the heart; of that, Pahn was certain. He could not read their minds, but he could sense the energy fluctuations given off by the changes in their emotions. They had just bounced from frenzied fight-and-flight, to sadness, to hope of escape, then down into debilitating despair.

  Pahn shifted its personal pattern frequency to the value it had tuned the gate-sentry, concealed in the gathering storm clouds overhead, to receive. The creature’s ether cilia plucked the Monster from the growing turbulence before the first lightning struck.

  The strategic situation finally began to look manageable again.

  159

  Haviri got to his feet and moved into the firelight, hand signaling his men to advance. Only a single bonfire lit the muddy, well-trampled space. Laid out in a star-shaped pattern around the fire, the bodies of his scouts left behind to shadow the enemy force each had their throats cut. Every corpse showed clear signs of intense torture before death.

  As he stepped closer to the blaze, Haviri saw a large plural logogram scrawled into a smoothed-out section of mud, with a smaller rosette print to the right. The larger marking represented a single word: Hostages. He recognized the rosette as the clan symbol for Khumi’s House.

  A quick reconnoiter showed the enemy force had discovered the scouts, then captured, and tortured them for information. All the scout commander’s squad members were dead, which meant the enemy commander held other prisoners, identified by the rosette.

  The enemy force itself had rapidly departed south, on the road it came in on, evidenced by the carelessly beaten grass and reeds.

  Haviri called the scout commander back to his side. “Take a couple men with you, and return to the main camp. Tell Lord Iyapeti what’s happened, and that I’ve decided to pursue to keep the enemy in sight.”

  160

  “Narnmer’s” tactical retreat from Iyapeti’s larger force did not go over well with “Isis.” His new announcement thrilled her even less.

  “Why do you think I kept these ships upstream and out of sight, woman? Is war just a blood-dance of no thinkings for you?” Ninurta scolded her inside the captain’s cabin aboard the ship he had taken as his command center. He leaned his full-lipped face forward to keep from bumping his head on the overhead. Both of the vessels Psydon had given “Isis” were positioned well upstream of the army marching south on the east bank. Ninurta had just announced that he would take the other vessel at full sail back to Gebtos to send out runners to the far-flung tribes and river towns for reinforcements.

  Inana-Isis said, “Why not send another to this Koptos place?”

  “I must consult with Thoth! Why do you think I owe explainings to you-wise? War is brain-work, not just sword and mace-play!”

  She sniffed. “So the brave war god keeps telling me.”

  “Enough with you! I go to other ship. You stay here.”

  Inana pouted for a while after he left. By the time she came out on deck, the sail of the other Psydonim vessel shrank on the river to the south. She stuck her tongue out at it, and went below decks to where Ninurta-Narnmer had bound the prisoners.

  Dumuzi sat with them, holding his falcon.

  “What are you doing here with them?” Isis demanded of him.

  Clearly, he had been conversing with Utana’Pishti and his wife.

  Dumuzi glared at her. “I have questions for the prisoners.”

  Inana exploded, “They will only confuse your young head with lies and old stories!”

  The falcon flapped its wings and gave a fierce cry. Dumuzi stood up, and strode for the ladder. At its base, he paused, turned, and said, “In case you’ve lost count, Mother,” he spat the word as a cobra spits venom, “I’m a hundred and fifty years old. Like you, I wear my age well in my divinity, but I’m no youth, any more than you are a nubile young siren, despite all the perversely imaginative promises of self-debasement you moan into men’s ears like desperate incantations. Are those crow’s feet I see forming at the corners of your eyes?” He then went up on deck.

  Inana shrieked after him as she thrust her finger at the prisoners. “What lies have they been telling you? Tell me!”

  Dumuzi ignored her, slamming the wooden hatch atop the ladder down behind him.

  The wife of Utana’Pishti said, “We weren’t even talking about you, Inana. I found his falcon interesting. It’s a beautiful animal.”

  The rage consumed Inana as a red storm.

  161

  Haviri processed shock, bitter disappointment, and confirmed suspicion, as he peered out between the reeds on the river bend. He watched the two ships separate, one remaining at anchor near the eastern bank, a few hundred cubits south, while the other unfurled its sail to head upstream, taking advantage of a strong wind from the north. Ninurta had transferred from the anchored vessel to the now moving one, confirming the M’El-Ki’s guess on the King Scorpion’s identity. The shock and disappointment had another source.

  Haviri could not miss the blue trident flags on both ships, as his heart sank. Either Ninurta had captured Psydon’s landing force far north even of Iyapeti’s first camp by the river, or Psydon had betrayed them. Since Ninurta could not easily have reached a landing zone so far north of Iyapeti’s position without detection, the first option was unlikely. That left the questions of, how had Psydon betrayed them, and why?

  The answer came strutting above deck on the anchored ship, and everything became clear to Haviri. Inana, Ishtar, Isis, that bitch-goddess of Bab’Elu, stood on the stern, gazing at the departing vessel for a few minutes, and then went back below.

  Haviri receded back into the reeds and waded back to the bank, where his guard waited for him. They slipped into the foliage and returned a short ways north. There, his Khana’Anhu forces rested in a hidden arc stretching from the riverbank to the eastern grasslands, camouflaged by reeds, shrubbery, and long grass, awaiting the sunset.

  Upon arrival, he immediately dispatched a runner with the new intelligence back to Iyapeti.

  As the sun lowered across the wide river, Haviri silently signaled his men by relayed shoulder taps to rise from their cover, and continue south. He suspected that Ninurta’s camp might stay where it was, since Inana’s ship had not sailed s
outh with the King Scorpion’s, but he could not be sure. In either case, he had given his men orders. If the enemy camp remained in place, as it had last night and for most of today, the Khana’Anhu would again recede into the river foliage, and wait for Iyapeti’s main force.

  The last runner from the main camp had reported a slow-down. Mires from yesterday’s heavy rainfall, and a couple new attempts at meeting with nearby Misori-Rayim tribes, had slowed Iyapeti’s advance another day.

  Once again, Haviri walked the riverbank, flanked by his guards.

  Heavy fog rolled in out of the north that night, which did not clear until almost dusk, the following day. Haviri decided to return to his reedy perch before he lost the sunlight.

  It did not take long for him to reach his earlier lookout spot, and pass just beyond it. There he found that the second Psydonim ship had also departed, along with what he could see of the enemy encampment.

  Haviri raced back to the trail, and then to his men. When he arrived, the nearest watch reported that the enemy had broken camp, and moved south during the fog. He ordered his men to do likewise.

  Haviri’s force raced to catch up to the Scorpion’s army through the night and following day. Near dusk on the next day after, the scouts found that the enemy had rested from their hard march to increase the distance between them, if only briefly.

  They found the abandoned campsite in a grove of wild tamarisks and fig trees. Only one thing remained behind, in the trampled space where the King Scorpion’s army had gathered to sit. A fig tree in the center seemed ready to split apart on either side under the weight of what looked like two enormous figs, ripening in the reddened light from over the river.

  Haviri approached it with hand-cannon drawn, glancing at the reeds and other small riverine shrubs beyond.

  Sunset crimsons mingled with those dripping from the hanging objects, which from a twilit distance, had resembled giant figs. Daylight’s final ray, loosed by a moving cloud, struck Father Khumi and Mother Tiva, who dangled, naked and hog-tied, from the tree’s two thickest limbs. The enemy had slit their throats ear to ear, after subjecting their hanging bodies to a dancing whirlwind of blades, while they had still lived.

  Haviri turned from the tree, fell to his knees into the warm crimson mud, and vomited, until all that came out of his face were tears and howls.

  162

  P’Tah-Tahut’s boat could not transport all of U’Sumi’s army, but it held his company of elite guards, with the bulk of their supplies. The other soldiers rode along the bank on both the onagers that came with the army, and others seized from the town of Gebtos. The summer grew late, and if all went as planned, King Scorpion would soon leave his garrisons, to march south for winter in smaller force.

  Malaq commanded the riders, giving orders to set scout teams ahead on the trail, and overland to the east. U’Sumi also posted riders on the river’s opposite bank, from the boat. Malaq’s main force kept abreast, and in sight of the boat as much as the riverside trail allowed.

  U’Sumi saw the mast of the approaching ship before any of his land forces did, at a time when the river trail had cut inland across a bend, out of sight to both vessels. When he saw Psydon’s blue trident banner flying, he relaxed, though curious as to why Psydon would take one of his ships so far south. Then he saw something through his spyglass that changed everything.

  “Get P’Tah-Tahut topside!” he ordered one of his guards.

  The aging Vizier appeared at U’Sumi’s elbow a moment later.

  U’Sumi said, “Why does Nimurta command one of Psydon’s ships?”

  “I don’t know. If I did, I’d tell you—his ‘scorpion spirit’ has gotten too much to handle lately, and it is in my interests to cooperate with you.”

  “That doesn’t tell me anything, Tahut.”

  The Vizier shrugged. “Keep me visibly on deck, and meet up with his ship. Narnmer has no reason to suspect that Gebtos has fallen, and that you’ve taken my vessel. It’s your chance to capture him without a fight.”

  U’Sumi was not so sure. It seemed to him that some events of the last century and a half could not have turned out as they had unless “En-Ki” or the Watchers had coordinated their human zealots over such impossible distances. For a split second, he wondered why E’Yahavah was not equally as forthcoming, but he pushed the thought away. Instead, he told one of his guards, which he had dressed Gebtos-style, to stand by Tahut.

  “Make sure he does nothing to signal that craft.” U’Sumi said to the man by Tahut. He then turned to his guard captain. “Ready your men inside the tented cabin. We’re boarding that ship. Helmsman, take her alongside! Ready the tackle.”

  P’Tah-Tahut told U’Sumi how to signal an answer, when the approaching vessel ran up a standard. Within minutes, the two ships slid alongside each other, men casting lines and down-stuffed leather fenders between the hulls. With forward and aft lashings secured, so that the other boat could not pull away, U’Sumi pulled his hand-cannon, and called his archers to attack.

  The bowmen stepped from slits in the tent cabin, and from behind the mast and barrels on deck, firing on anyone with a weapon aboard the enemy ship. U’Sumi took aim on the tiller man, and fired, dropping the man over the side. Ninurta’s vessel foundered, lashed hard to U’Sumi’s, who ordered his helm hard over until the other ship’s sail sagged.

  Ninurta seemed stunned by the suddenness of the boarding, but managed to draw his blade. U’Sumi leapt over the two railings onto the Psydonim ship, and leveled his hand-cannon at the giant’s face. The King Scorpion seemed possessed of enough wit to understand his situation, and laid his weapon down on the deck. It was all over in less than a minute.

  U’Sumi said to him, “You will stand trial under the terms of the Divine M’Ae. I don’t think there’s a death big enough for you to die that can cleanse the lands from the murder of an entire civilization!”

  Ninurta said, “I hold the Great Father and Mother of Clan Khnum.”

  The M’El-Ki growled to his men, “Chain his wrists to the yardarm, and legs to those cleats! Hoist him off the deck! Let him hang in the wind!”

  “My warriors will kill them if I return not!”

  U’Sumi gazed at the prisoner through half-shut eyes. “I think your warriors have bigger problems right about now.”

  Yet in the darkest recesses of his mind, his heart pleaded, and if they don’t, then it’s all for nothing, anyway. Please don’t leave us, E’Yahavah!”

  163

  Iyapeti’s cavalry assault came out of the dawn rays. He had taken his riders onto the higher grasslands during the night, and encircled the enemy camp from the east, after hearing Haviri’s report. Whoever led the Scorpion’s army in his absence lacked experience, sense, or both. They had marched their men to exhaustion, and brought upon themselves the need of an extended rest that undid whatever advantage they had gained by the forced march. Now, ‘Peti’s horsemen charged down a gradual, perfectly backlit slope at a near-blinded enemy, who scattered, haphazardly grabbing for their nearest weapons.

  Iyapeti’s huge battle-axe cleaved its first skull when he swung it on a man fumbling for a spear, and a second on his backswing, hewing a macer. No number of vermin crushed as grapes under the hooves of his terrible mount assuaged his fury. Quite the opposite; the more he hacked them, the greater that rage grew.

  Haviri had waited to bury Khumi and Tiva, until Iyapeti could see the offense of spilled blood on this land for himself. As far as A’Nu-Ahki’s eldest son was concerned, this had become a war of extermination against any who had conspired with Ninurta either in the Riverlands of the Sumar and Agadae, or in this new land of the Styx. This people had murdered their father and mother—not to mention his kid brother!

  Iyapeti drove his mount hard down on three enemy warriors trying to raise a line of spears against the horses. Hurling his battle-axe at the would-be wall, he chopped through one of the spears, and sent the head of its holder flying from his neck. Then he drew his iron sword from its
back-sheath, and skewered the other two spearmen in a single jab, kicking their corpses free from his blade with his armored foot.

  All around him, his riders swept through the camp, followed by the Khana’Anhu melee fighters. Haviri simply strolled into battle, flanked by his sword and mace men, firing his hand-cannon to drop foe after foe with dark, mechanical efficiency. This magical thunder weapon, from a lost world of mist and legend, terrified the enemy, who turned and bolted for the river. Like Iyapeti, neither Haviri nor his men let any of Narnmer’s folk live—not even those who threw down their weapons to surrender. Those of King Scorpion’s warriors that escaped the cavalry charge fell to Haviri’s wizardry, or to his sword and mace men, except for the few that made it to the river.

  The ship of Psydon already struck its sail to make good its escape.

  Men piled into several boats on the bank, while another skiff lowered from the ship’s crude pulley.

  164

  Dumuzi came above deck when he heard the strange thunder from the bank.

  He shouted for the mariners to lower the shore boat, while Inana shrieked for the sailors to do the opposite, and get the ship away. Horakhti hurled his falcon at the first seaman that hesitated to obey him. Seconds later, the wailing man shielded bloodied eyes as the war bird clawed and pecked his flesh away in strips. The other sailors began to cry, “Horahkti! Horahkti!” as they started again to lower the boat on its pulleys.

  “Get as many of those fighters aboard as you can!” commanded the Falconer as he helped them unlash the skiff. “And hoist that anchor!”

  Inana seemed stunned until after the skiff pulled away, but then she stormed up to her son, her eyes bulging from her head. “What darings have you to move men against me?” She raised her hand, nails flared as claws.