its flashing blade. It hissed angrily as it fell, and the bull’s thick neck severed cleanly, the head seeming to leap from the trunk. Headless, the body fell to its knees and the blood pumped and gushed.
Huy leaned upon his weapon in the typical stance of the resting axeman.
‘A sign, great Baal!’ Huy shouted, making it more a demand than a request. ‘Give your children a sign!’ And his voice was tiny in the immensity of swamp and sky and water. The timeless silence of the swamps fell upon them, the silence of the ages in the smoky purple dawn.
A flight of spur-winged geese passed overhead, wings beating heavily, long necks outstretched, silhouetted darkly against the rosy streamers of sun-touched mist. Huy watched them hopefully, tempted to claim them as god-forms.
‘A sign, great Baal!’ He thrust aside the temptation, but his irritation was increasing. The sacrifice had been meticulously performed right down to the single clean stroke of the axe - was this to be one of those occasions when the god’s attention had wandered, or was he being obstinate, pig-headed? A hippopotamus splashed and snorted out in the bay, and Huy turned towards it expectantly, but the fat grey sea-cow merely fluttered its ears like bees’ wings, then submerged with a swirl.
‘A sign, great Baal!’ The third and final request, and almost immediately it was answered.
A sound rose from beyond the papyrus beds that startled the water birds into flight, that shook the fluffy white heads of the reeds, that seemed to roll across the heavens like thunder. A sound such as none of them had ever heard before. The roaring of the gry-lion.
Huy’s dark scowl vanished beneath a beatific smile, and he turned those long-lashed gazelle eyes on his prince.
‘The gods have answered you, Lannon Hycanus.’ He was seeing the faces of the priests and nobles and warriors and huntsmen, the superstitious awe with which they gazed at him. He would sacrifice privately to Baal later, nothing ostentatious or expensive, a chicken perhaps, as a gesture of thanks for this magnificent cooperation. It would rank with one of his best performances ever. Huy was so delighted with his success that he could not resist a further histrionic gesture.
‘Go out, Prince of Opet, and take your gry-lion,’ said Huy.
The little bushman led them along one of the buffalo paths. It was a green tunnel of reeds, the papyrus closing overhead to hide the sky, the damp peaty swamp earth underfoot, the musty animal swamp smell in their nostrils. They came out at last into the open grassland. Short, bright green grass cropped down by the countless herds of buffalo that infested this reach of the shore.
The bushman turned and led them along the edge of the papyrus-beds. They were an unwieldy procession, four or five hundred strong, for some of the noble nine would not come ashore to look for the gry-lion without a thick screen of archers and axemen around them. They trailed far behind Lannon’s party which consisted of Mursil the huntmaster, smelling richly of fruity Zeng wine, the bushman, Huy, the prince and his two arms-bearers.
The gods were as good as their promise that morning. The bushman led them around a bank of papyrus that thrust out into the plain like an accuser’s finger, and as they turned the point of it they came upon another bay of open grassland. It was a natural arena, fenced on three sides by the stands of dark reeds, a huge circular extent of lush grass about half a mile across.
Down the centre of this opening, lying at regular intervals, were six large dark objects, clearly visible on the open plain, but the range was too long for immediate identification.
Mursil, the huntmaster, spoke quickly to the pygmy scout in a formless dialect. Huy made a note to study this language, it was the only spoken word in all the four kingdoms in which he was not fluent.
‘My lord, he says they are dead buffalo killed by the gry-lion,’ Mursil translated on
‘Where is the beast?’ Lannon asked, and the bushman pointed.
‘It is there, behind the second carcass. It has seen and heard us, and it is lying hidden,’ Mursil explained.
‘Can he see it?’ Lannon demanded.
‘Yes, my lord. He can see the tips of its ears and its eyes. It is watching us.’
‘At that distance?’ Lannon asked with disbelief, looking down at the bushman. ‘I do not believe it.’
‘It is true, my lord. He has the eyes of an eagle.’
‘At your peril, if he is mistaken,’ Lannon warned.
‘At my peril,’ Mursil agreed readily, and Lannon turned to Huy.
‘Make ready, my bird of the sun.’
While they stripped Lannon of his armour, bound his loins in a cloth of linen, and set light hunting sandals on his feet, the rest of the party straggled up. Some of the older nobles were in litters. Asmun, looking frail and white- haired, stopped his bearers beside Lannon.
‘A clean kill,’ he wished the prince. ‘Like the one your father made.’ And they carried him to where he could have a view of the field. The party spread out along the edge of the reed bank, their arms and armour glinting in the sunlight, their robes purple and white and red, spots of gay colour against the dark reed-beds. A silence fell upon them as Lannon stepped forward and turned to face them.
His body was naked but for the loin-cloth, and the skin was smooth and startlingly white except where the sun had gilded his face and limbs. It was a beautiful body, tall and gracefully proportioned, heavy in the shoulder and narrow at waist and belly. His curls were bound with a purple headband and his red-gold beard was clubbed and turned up against his throat.
He looked at the waiting ranks before him.
‘I make claim to the city of Opet, and all the four kingdoms,’ he said with simplicity, and his voice carried clearly to every one of them.
Huy took his weapons to him. The shield. Hide of the buffalo, shaped in a long oval, tall as a man and as wide as his shoulders. In its centre were the ‘eyes’, a pair of fierce owl eyes painted in white and yellow. When these were exposed to a beast they represented the natural aggressive stare which would usually trigger the charge of a
