Ordinarily, the islanders fought nearly naked, like the Thabas, with bright paint decorating the scars on their skin. The uniform, armored grayness of the invaders was disconcerting. And some of the Uloans were smaller than others, as though women and children had donned the gray armor along with the men. The movements of all were awkward, as though they had awakened from a long sleep. But they marched steadily forward, and in silence as well, for the cries of “Retribution Time” had suddenly ceased.
“Loose arrows!” the commander of the Matile archers cried from the roof of an overlooking building.
A thousand bowstrings twanged. A thousand arrows arced over the heads of the Matile soldiers toward the invaders. The Uloans made no attempt to escape or protect themselves as the arrows struck, nearly every one of them reaching its target. At the commander’s order, two more volleys of death tore into the Uloans.
And not a single invader fell.
Most of the arrows had bounced from the gray patina that covered the Uloans’ bodies. Others were embedded point-deep, as if they had become lodged in hardened mud. The Uloans made no effort to pull the arrows free. Undamaged, the invaders continued to march forward. As they came closer, the Matile realized their foes were either more – or less – than human. And with that awful understanding came the beginning of the kind of fear that steals courage and causes battles to be lost.
From his vantage point alongside the commander of the archers, Jass Eshana watched the advance of the invaders. More Uloan ships had broken through and tied up at the docks. Hordes of other Uloans disembarked without interference, since the Matiles’ attention was focused on the first wave of attackers.
The newcomers did not have the peculiar crustation that covered and protected the others. The familiar daubs of bright paint adorned the scarification patterns on their bodies. Screaming maniacally and shaking their weapons, they fanned out behind their vanguard. As soon as they landed, the invaders again began their maddening chant: “Retribution Time!”
Eshana and the commander of the archers, whose name was Jass Kidan, looked at each other in dismay.
“Everyone on those damned islands who can fight must be out there,” Jass Kidan said in a near-whisper. “And the ones in front ....”
“Ashuma,” Jass Eshana said.
He turned an archer who was staring wide-eyed at the scene below.
“Go to Gebrem,” the Dejezmek instructed. “Tell him his skills are needed now, and tell him why.”
The archer nodded, slung his bow over his shoulder and headed for the nearest passage off the roof of the building. The sound of shouts and the clash of weapons rang in his ears as the Uloan and Matile forces met.
3
In the Beit Amiya, Tiyana knelt before the altar of Nama-kwah. The Mask of the goddess covered her face and an aquamarine chamma hung loosely around her. Her body was bent in an arc, muscles rigid as she invoked the ashuma of the deity she had served all her life.
An ancient statue that depicted Nama-kwah as a woman wearing a chamma made of fish scales loomed above her. The face of the idol duplicated the one on the silver mask. Its stone arms were spread wide, as though the goddess were embracing the sea, and the Matile people as a whole. In the past, that caress was as tangible as that of a lover.
Now ...
Mouthing incantations that were many centuries old, Tiyana entreated Nama-kwah to roil the waters of Khambawe’s harbor; to raise foaming waves large enough to sink the Uloans’ ships and break them into kindling; to spin whirlpools that would drag the invaders into the goddess’s deep Realm; to send sharks and other sea-predators to savage the survivors.
In the distant past, when Tiyana’s ancestors among the Amiyas had knelt in the same spot and spoken the same words to the stone effigy, Nama-kwah would have acted, and her ashuma would have infused Tiyana, and it would have given her the power to do more than merely dance on the waves. But now the Goddess was silent, just as she had been during First Calling, when the Fidi ship had arrived in the midst of her dance on the waves.
Then Tiyana remembered that Nama-kwah actually had spoken to her then, whispering a single word: Danger. At the time, she thought the goddess was warning her about the Fidi. Now, she realized that Nama-kwah had foretold the massive attack by the Uloans.
Nama-kwah’s silence had returned in the Matile’s time of need. Tiyana didn’t feel even a tingle of ashuma. The Goddess had abandoned her idol; it was no more responsive than any ordinary piece of carved stone. And she had abandoned her Vessel as well. Yet Tiyana continued to speak the ancient words. She could think of nothing else to do.
Similar scenes occurred at other altars as other masked Amiyas entreated the Jagasti to whom they had been pledged as children.
The Amiya of Ufashwe, God of the wind, asked for a tempest to overwhelm the Uloan ships. The Amiya of Sama-wai, Goddess of illness and decay, called for a plague to strike the Uloans down. The Amiya of Chaile, God of fortune good and ill, prayed for the Uloans’ swords to break and their shields to turn brittle. The Amiya of Alamak, Goddess of the Stars, called for fiery stones to fall from the sky onto the heads of the invaders.
Like Tiyana’s, the prayers to those and all the other Jagasti went unheeded. All except one – that of Keshu, Amiya of Halasha, God of iron and war. Keshu asked only that the soldiers of Matile fight courageously. That prayer was the only one that was answered, though not by Halasha.
Jass Gebrem stood apart from the others. Abi in hand, he attempted to consolidate
