Lords of the Black Sands

by J. Edward Neill

  “I thought…I thought immortals knew all there is to know.” Tablii looked almost worried.

  Galen shook his head.

  “Perhaps we do, perhaps not,” he said. “But I’ve decided someone other than me needs to remember this night. And someone needs to know that what I do, I do not out of malevolence, but out of necessity.”

  Tablii’s eyes widened. The poor young man didn’t understand.

  “See the dark plain behind us?” Galen pointed south, into lands the army had trodden only an hour ago. “Soon Saeed will give the order to move west toward the Great Canal. The others will follow, some out of fear, the rest out of a misguided belief that they might survive to see tomorrow. But not you, Tablii. You won’t follow. You’ll go south. Into the night. Into the dark where nothing roams.”

  “You want me to survive?” said the boy.

  “You, and only you,” said Galen. “And I don’t want you to go home. I want you to march south and east for a day, then cut your way to the great mountains far east of here. It will take you many weeks. You might run out of food. You might die. But if you live, I want you to hunker in the mountains’ shadow until the end of your days.”

  The light of understanding flickered in Tablii’s eyes, but then waned.

  “I want to ask—why me?” the boy said. “But instead I’ll ask—why there? Why the mountains? Why not the river delta? Why not anywhere else in the world? If you do as you’ve foretold, if you make the world right again, why should I be afraid to live anywhere I choose?”

  A black thought scudded through Galen’s mind. Tablii saw it and shivered.

  “Some things, some events…they’ll happen no matter what,” Galen said, and the boy shivered again. “You understand? The savior you want me to be is not the man molded by five-hundred years of suffering. The idea of me sitting atop the throne, undoing seven centuries of evil with a flick of my fingers, it’s not real. It never was.”

  Galen knew Tablii was wiser than his years, braver than the fools in Saeed’s army, and smarter than Saeed himself. He waited for the truth to dawn in the boy’s head, and when he saw the light return to Tablii’s eyes, he knew he’d chosen well.

  “I understand,” was all Tablii said. He was quieter than before, so struck by the truth he looked as though he’d aged ten years in the span of a single breath.

  “You’ll do it?” asked Galen.

  Tablii nodded. He’d run out of words.

  “Good. Now, they’ll think you’re a deserter if you stand up and start walking. You’ll need to wait until the clouds roll in. Don’t worry—the clouds are coming. I can smell them already. When they cover the stars, run. Don’t stop, or Saeed will send a few Habiru to clip off your head. Just keep running. Don’t look back.”

  Tablii looked afraid. Galen wondered if he’d looked the same at the boy’s age, some four-hundred ninety years ago.

  “One more thing—” Galen set his closed fist atop Tablii’s shoulder. “If you encounter anyone during your travels, anyone at all, you tell them what happened here. Tell them two nights before winter began, Saeed’s great army marched against the Lords of the Sands. And tell them not a single soldier among the great host was ever seen again. Indeed, only two men survived that night. A boy named Tablii. And the Prey, who marched across the sand and became the Lord of everything.”

  He saw the questions on Tablii’s lips.

  He wants to ask how I know.

  How, if the future is unknowable, can I say this with certainty.

  And why. Why I’m sparing him. Why, if I become Lord, does it all end the same.

  “Wait for the clouds,” he told the boy. “When the stars go out, run and hide forever.”

  31

  The Great Canal cut like a sword through the night’s heart.

  On one side, Saeed’s army massed in the dark. With white eyes and weapons teeming, they stood mere yards from the water’s edge, waiting for the promise of a thousand boats to come.

  On the opposite side, the deep silence kept watch. The sandy plain, buried beneath the midnight clouds, stretched into forever. Somewhere far beyond the shore arose dunes, desolate valleys, and beyond it all the Pharaoh’s Pyramid, gleaming blacker than the spaces between the stars.

  Galen stood at the army’s northernmost quarter. His cowl lay atop his forehead, his sword hung over his shoulder, and the night moved in his eyes, thick as black broth.

  Beside him, free for the moment of his swarming generals, Saeed stood with his thick arms crossed. The so-called king of Persi wore a stretched smile on his bearded face. Galen reckoned he’d never seen a mortal more self-assured than Saeed. Every other human in the Kingdom of Earth was wise enough to be afraid.

  But not Saeed.

  The great man believed his time had come.

  “See them?” Saeed pointed north along the Great Canal. “Use your almighty eyes, immortal. Can you see the boats?”

  Galen glanced just once. The dark channel, some three-hundred yards wide, lay empty as far north as he could see.

  “No boats. No nothing,” he said. “The later they arrive, the longer your men will march across the sand beneath the sun.”

  Saeed frowned. “We’re far enough north. There will be shelters in the sand between us and the Pyramid. Old cities, old ruins. We’ll march as far as we can, and then we’ll fall upon the Pharaoh’s sacred house. Tonight…or the next. It doesn’t matter.”

  Galen leveled his gaze at the stars. Up there in the dark, the Pharaoh’s eyes hovered, the cold, calculating machines able to see great armies like Saeed’s—or tiny tools in a child’s hand. Saeed had claimed again and again the eyes would be blind to the army’s approach.

  Galen knew better.

  But said nothing to Saeed.

  “I want you close.” The big man eyed him. “We’ve got to get you alive into the Pyramid.”

  Beneath his cowl, Galen’s eyes snapped shut. “You trust me to kill Menkaur, slaughter his guards, and evade the thousand traps he’ll have set inside the Pyramid.” He shot a dark look at Saeed. “But you think out here I need your protection?”

  “Non-negotiable,” chuffed Saeed. “Doesn’t seem like a high price to pay. You stay where I can see you—I hand you the Kingdom of Earth. Even trade, yes?”

  Galen bristled at the idea of anyone handing him anything. In the dark, no one saw the shadow fall across him.

  To be rid of him, he thought of Saeed.

  Oh, to be rid of everyone.

  For a long while, they waited. The Habiru horde, massed like a dark forest at the Great Canal’s edge, gazed across the water as if a hated rival were waiting on the other side. The other soldiers gathered quietly at Saeed’s back, segregated by their languages, all of them afraid.

  The clouds had rolled in again, blotting the stars. The silence was so deep Galen imagined himself alone.

  Just one man and his sword.

  Facing down the night and all things in it.

  And then it happened. It began as a murmur among the Habiru, spreading quickly to the others. North of the army’s position, someone had spotted the first of the boats gliding down the Canal. Galen stepped down to the water’s edge. He saw ten boats, then fifty, then hundreds, piloted southward along the shore. The rafts were as crude as he’d imagined, little more than logs and planks tied together with cords of hemp. Each one was piloted by a single man, and none were big enough to carry more than a handful of soldiers.

  Saeed had made his soldiers believe the boats would be something closer to giant galleons than flimsy rafts. If anyone had seen Galen’s eyes in the night, they’d have caught the laughter in his gaze.

  Truly, Saeed, this is an armada fit for the gods.

  But boats they were, and already the Habiru were piling aboard. Five men to one raft, eight on the next, they began skittering across the Great Canal like waterbugs. That none of the first twenty sank seemed a marvel. It was a fortunate thing, Saeed muttered beneath his breath, that the Canal waters
were calm, and that the Nemesis’ warships didn’t attack during the crossing.

  Everyone would have died.

  While Saeed’s host began the long, slow slog across the water, Galen slipped away. It was all too easy. The so-called king had looked to his generals, and was busy issuing his orders.

  “No one speaks. No one makes a sound,” Saeed told three Europa men. “Gather them in ranks of one-hundred, just as planned. No intermingling. No laughing. No cries of triumph. If there’s Pharaoh’s men on the other side, we don’t want them to hear us until we’re on top of them.”

  Saeed had more instructions for his generals, but Galen passed out of earshot. He hurried along the shore, moving away from the rafts, brushing through a sea of pale, nervous, and ghostly faces.

  He was looking for someone with a sword.

  And soon enough he found one.

  “You.” He stepped in front of a Japas warrior. The warrior was taller than the others, with broad shoulders and a rugged, weather-worn face. How long he’d traveled to join Saeed, Galen could only imagine.

  The warrior looked at Galen. There seemed no doubt he recognized the Prey. In his eyes flashed the same fear Galen had long ago learned to expect.

  “You look cold.” Galen switched to the Japas language. “I’d like to help you.”

  The man didn’t look especially bothered by the night’s chill, and yet before he could protest, Galen pulled his knight’s cloak off and slung it around the man’s shoulders. He even adjusted the man’s sword, tugging it so it would sit in its scabbard much the same as Galen’s own.

  “There. Now you’re looking ready for war.” He patted the man’s upper arms. “You and the others from Japas are wanted near the water. It’s an honor, I hear, to march beside King Saeed. You should go, and go quickly.”

  The man stared back with eyes blank as slates. The night was deep, and Galen knew he was the only thing the man could see.

  “You’re me now.” He grinned. “Play the part for a while. And keep the cloak. It’s nice, but I’ll find another soon. Now go. Let King Saeed see you. Cross the Great Canal, and I’ll see you on the other side.”

  The Japas man looked at Galen a little while longer.

  But the next time he blinked, Galen was already gone.

  * * *

  Without his cloak, Galen allowed himself a rare shiver. The night was deepest near the water, and although no breeze existed, the darkness had long ago sucked all the warmth out of the world. All he wore now was the sackcloth shirt and pants he’d taken at Saeed’s island and the sword still dangling over his shoulder. Even his boots were gone, cast into the water without a care.

  His shivers passed.

  He stood statuesque on the Great Canal’s eastern bank, watching Saeed’s army float to the other side. Other men would’ve seen only grey shapes sliding over black water.

  But Galen saw everything.

  Every face paled with terror.

  Every Habiru man’s glittering eyes.

  Every raft and dinghy, cobbled together in some long-dead forest and dragged down through barren plains.

  Whether or not Saeed had picked out the Japas man as a false Prey, Galen neither knew nor cared. Giving away his clothes had been a ruse, meant more for distraction than actual deceit. Besides, for as much as he’d liked the cloak and boots, he’d no desire to swim the Great Canal while wearing them.

  The sword’s heavy enough.

  If anyone recognized his absence, none cried it out.

  If anyone saw him standing alone by the water, gazing into nothing, none dared approach.

  He watched another hundred rafts slide across the Canal. Somehow, none had capsized, and no one had drowned. Saeed’s plan appeared to be masterful thus far. In all the centuries of Menkaur’s reign, no invader had come so close to the Pyramid, which lay only one-hundred miles to the west.

  Even so…

  A king, Saeed calls himself.

  A corpse bigger than the rest, he’ll be.

  Of Saeed, Galen spent no further thought. With each raft landing on the western bank, his mind drew back further into its familiar dark place. He was alone again, not just in body, but in spirit. Though he’d sworn to never think of his mother again, he closed his eyes and glimpsed her in his mind.

  She who was no more.

  She who had burned away to nothing not far from where he stood.

  Again, he heard her voice. How many times had he driven it down, shutting it away behind every door his mind could conceive?

  ‘Don’t do this,’ she whispered to him again. ‘The world isn’t dead. Dream of anything but this, Galen, anything but your black, black dream. Anything, my love. Please.’

  He shook his head and clutched his face. His fingernails drew long red lines down his cheeks.

  Goodbye, Mother. I can’t dream of you again.

  You’re gone.

  You’re dead.

  He exhaled. The breath hurt to leave his body, but only once. Having cast his mother out, he allowed himself a final moment to remember another.

  Elia.

  In his own way, he had loved her. Denying it had been the easy path, but there was a part of him which needed her to stand beside him. To love him. To protect him. To save him from himself. She hadn’t known his mind, not truly, and yet for her he might’ve chosen a different path entirely.

  She was not my queen.

  Never my wife.

  She was a companion.

  A voice in the dark.

  And she loved me.

  In one breath, his heart beat harder for her. A lone tear ran in a cold, waxen line down his cheek.

  In the next, Elia’s memory floated away with the water.

  Down, he hunkered. In the sand, in thickets of low, bristling reeds, he hid and watched. Saeed’s army finished their crossing and staked their rafts to the far shore. The sight of hundreds of ugly boats fluttering in the shallows—as if they’d ever be used again—caused Galen to crack a cruel smile.

  He waited.

  And watched.

  And listened.

  The army, nearly too far away to hear, splintered into smaller groups. Saeed had told his warriors not to mix ethnicities, to march in small, familiar tribes. Galen knew the real reason wasn’t to make the soldiers easier to control, but to divide them far enough apart to prevent a single Scimitar disc from disintegrating huge blocks of troops in a single pass.

  …which means he knows the Pharaoh sees him.

  Brave, brave Saeed.

  In a great shadowy mass, the army marched away into the west. Individual soldiers melted into the night, and huge squads of men became black carpets rolling across the desolate plain. Even if Saeed had realized Galen’s absence, it was too late now. Thousands upon thousands, the last of the world’s capable men had already set their doom in motion.

  Galen considered all the ways in which it could end.

  But a part of him already knew.

  Absently, he looked to the east, and he wondered how far Tablii had walked. Had the boy listened? Would he survive to tell a single soul a story he hadn’t witnessed.

  He considered the uselessness of sparing one life.

  And then he froze.

  The first thing he felt was a subtle quake in the sand beneath his naked feet. The earth trembled, the grass shivered, and the water at the Great Canal’s edge rippled. He doubted Saeed’s army sensed it. The sounds of their footsteps would’ve drowned out the quiet, subterranean rumble.

  But Galen felt everything.

  He supposed he should’ve been surprised.

  It’s happening sooner than I thought.

  Thunder split the night. Galen dared not emerge from his hiding spot to find its source. Crouched in the scrub, eyelids thick with sand, he saw more than enough. The western sky cracked, and the clouds unfurled. With his immortal eyes, he made out ten sickle-winged ships tearing ragged holes in the dark.

  He saw no more of Saeed’s army.

  The
thousands must’ve trembled, their terror now realized.

  Now… He thought of Saeed.

  Let’s see what your stones and arrows can do.

  The thunder deepened. The night awoke with the roar of the Black Fleet’s engines, the ghastly tremolo of the worst most hated machines. Galen spared a lone thought for the Japas men and for the soldier to whom he’d given his cloak. They deserved better than Saeed, he reckoned. They’d earned death by the sword, not to be razed by Scimitars and carved to fleshy pulp by dark-lances.

  He hunkered lower.

  He thought he heard screams, roars, and panic from Saeed’s army, but he couldn’t be sure.

  The Black Fleet descended from the tattered clouds, the obsidian discs on their bottoms glimmering, the ships’ hulls catching starlight from the wounds they’d carved in heaven. Lower and lower they flew, like ink tumbling down night’s parchment. In moments, Galen knew they’d be within killing range.

  And then how many of Saeed’s army would remain?

  How many would—

  A different tenor of thunder cracked the sky. The warship closest to Galen, some two miles west, exploded in midair. In one moment, the ship was a perfect ebon scythe, and in the next, red fire engulfed it. Its skeletal remains plummeted earthward, the machine-bones burning as they fell.

  Galen almost stood.

  His heart almost soared.

  Of all the things he’d dreamed possible, he hadn’t dared believe Saeed had found a way to destroy the Fleet.

  He supposed he was impressed.

  Another ship exploded. The farthest of the Fleet from Galen, the hulking thing blossomed with fire before its burning components streaked down to the sandy plain. It hit the sands and cratered the dry earth with black metal and angry fire.

  Galen watched.

  And understood.

  Old tricks.

  Guerilla tactics.

  A rebel on each ship, I wager.

  …willing to die for the cause.

  This is what happens, Eadunn.

  Slow, the pot boils.

  But then the people’s hate runs over.

  Three more ships detonated. Oblivious to the fates of their fellow vessels, the three had reached killing range and positioned their Scimitars above Saeed’s army. But the discs never fired. No one in the army was disintegrated. The only rebels who died were those struck by falling, flaming debris.