‘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.
