Max Allan Collins

warlord had been taken to the edge of dying....

Mathayus had no time for such niceties, and swung his sword in sidearm fashion, hoping to cut the bastard in two.

But the warlord ducked the blow, and swung his leg around, the toe of his boot sinking deep into the Akkadian's side, doubling him up in pain, just in time for that same foot to kick again, catching his jaw.

That straightened the Akkadian, only to send him staggering backward, until he crashed into a table alongside the altar steps, crushing it under his con­siderable weight. Though his scimitar remained in hand, Mathayus was dazed, barely conscious, and ready for finishing off by the warlord....

But even as the fog began to lift in the barbarian's mind, he could see his opponent, not bearing down on him, rather staring up at the moon.

If Mathayus had not been dazed, he would have taken this opportunity to charge at the warlord, and slash him to ribbons; instead, groggily, he turned his own eyes to the moon, and wondered if he was de­lirious—the orb was ringed in silver, glowing all 'round. .. and the outline of a scorpion had become visible on its distant face.

As for Memnon, he knew he would have to put off killing the barbarian, for a few moments anyway; because a moment was upon him that must be seized, a juxtaposition of man and the heavens, a moment when reality and destiny became one: the time of the prophecy had arrived.

His swords no longer aflame, Memnon strode up the wide stone steps, pausing midway to call out to the sky, in a voice both grim and determined: 'Great gods above—look down upon me!'

Mathayus began to push to his feet. Did this mad­man think he could command the gods?

The warlord on the altar steps still spoke to the sky, to the moon, but now his voice was hushed: 'Make me one with you.'

And Cassandra, her wits gathered, stood aghast as her prophecy seemed to be coming true. They were in the courtyard, just as she had envisioned it in the bandit's camp; and Memnon was on those altar steps, with Mathayus preparing to make an at­tack from the flank.

Frightened, she turned to one of several courtyard doors, trying to tap into her memory of the vision— an archer had emerged from a door onto this open area, but which door? She swung around, looking at another possibility, and another . .. any one of three doors....

Even now, she thought, that archer was pounding down a palace corridor, no doubt drawing an arrow on the run. But which corridor? What door?

Then, the door at the left held her gaze; no, she had not regained her mystical powers: she had merely spotted something growing up between stones, a flower struggling toward a sun that had long since set.

In her vision, the archer had stepped through a doorway, on the run, and crushed such a small, yel­low flower.

And in moments, the sorceress knew, he would do it again.

A man on foot—a badly wounded one at that— meeting a horseman's lance with a sword was by all logic doomed to failure. And, as if proof of that wisdom, Takmet thrust his lance expertly and caught, with its hooked tip, the Nubian by his calf. Takmet jerked upward, taking Balthazar's leg out from under him; the bandit king's other foot went with it, and he went smashing backward into a stone wall, sliding down to sit awkwardly on the corridor floor.

On his backside now, bleeding, breathing hard, Balthazar was cornered, the smirking Takmet loom­ing over him from his saddle.

As the prince's horse trotted almost casually up to him, Balthazar raised his hands in surrender.