Since that day eight years ago when Iardu had caused Khama to remember his own history, the herdsman had given up his agrarian life for a palatial estate near the palace of Undutu. There his family dwelled in luxury and privilege. All save Kuchka, his oldest son, who had attended the College of Sages before joining the cavalry legions of Undutu. Khama was thankful that his warrior-sage son had not joined the royal navy, or he would be on one of these ships right now, and sailing toward a grim fate.
In the past eight years Undutu the Boy-King had grown into a strapping young man, a brash lion eager to prove himself by cutting down foes and winning glory. Two years ago his mother’s regency had come to an end as Undutu reached his seventeenth year. On that same day Khama’s position was elevated from Chief Advisor to Prime Vizier. Undutu had needed his advice more than ever as his mother’s fading health kept her from the throne room. The voices of generals and diplomats filled the young King’s ears constantly, but always he came back to Khama when making important decisions. Undutu had never known his father, a victim of the plague while Undutu was yet an infant, so he came to view Khama in a paternal light. Khama, too, saw the King as more than his liege. At times Undutu seemed more like Khama’s son than the fiercely independent Kuchka. The King of Mumbaza was often called Son of the Feathered Serpent, but only Khama knew the irony of that honorific.
Tuka and Bota were both well into their teenage years now, strong boys showing much promise. And little Isha, Khama’s only daughter, was twelve. All three spent most of their time with tutors, or in the company of other highborn children. Khama wished he knew them better, as well as he had come to know Undutu.
Undutu’s tutors had filled the young King’s head with stories from the Age of Heroes, legends from the Age of Walking Gods. The King’s martial instructors, General Tsoti chief among them, had honed his gift for swordplay, spearcraft, and war strategy to the point of obsession. This had begun well before Khama had come to court. For years now he had persuaded Undutu to avoid the call to war; the Sword King of Uurz made ceaseless overtures to the King on the Cliffs. Each year it had become more difficult to sway the young lion with the wisdom of peace. When the King of Yaskatha at last joined the Sword King’s crusade to conquer Khyrei, Undutu had gone deaf to Khama’s words. There would be war, and Khyrei would finally pay for its long list of crimes.
Yet the Slave King had arisen before the Legions of Uurz and Udurum had arrived. There was no longer any need to assault the black city, for Gammir the Reborn and Ianthe the Claw were vanquished at the hands of Sharadza Vodsdaughter and an army of vengeful slaves. Word of the aborted siege had reached Khama before the southern navies reached the shores of Khyrei. But Khama remained skeptical until Undutu’s flagship had docked at the Khyrein harbor; then he saw that Iardu the Shaper had been behind the entire affair.
Iardu had awakened Khama to the reality of his own past years ago. And now he had called together the Kings of the Five Cities and awakened them to the reality of what was to come. He showed them Zyung the God-King, Lord of the Living Empire, and his hordes of Manslayers. After three thousand years, Zyung’s mighty hand was finally reaching across the world. A great invasion was coming. It wasn’t until he saw Iardu’s vision that Khama realized how inevitable this war had become. Long ago Khama and Iardu had led their peoples to a land where the Living Empire had no foothold. Khama had fostered Mumbaza, a kingdom based on peace and freedom; he had worked hard to maintain its peace and advised every King of the Pearl City’s lineage. Yet all of it was about to end, unless the Hordes of Zyung were repelled.
Undutu would get his chance to be a hero.
The Son of the Feathered Serpent would not sit idle and await invasion. As any hero from the sagas would do, Undutu must sail his fleet to meet the invaders on the open sea, carry the fight to the aggressors. King D’zan agreed, despite the Shaper’s disapproval. Iardu’s manipulations had come to an end; he could no longer trick the assembled Kings into following his advice. So the fleets had sailed eastward, and Tong the Avenger had contributed his own navy to the armada. The Khyreins were only too glad to avoid persecution by pledging themselves to the Slave King and his allies. The two hundred black warships with their devil-head prows had been scourges of the Golden Sea when Ianthe and Gammir had ruled. Now they would serve well in the coming battle, if only as fodder for Zyung’s dreadnoughts.
This would not only be a battle of Men and metal, flesh and blood. A second battle would determine the true course of events. A battle of sorcery. Khama contemplated the immense sky-ships that carried Zyung’s legions and the flocks of flying lizards that supplemented their numbers. Soon he must begin to weave spells for his King and the double fleet. For now, he stood at the prow of the flagship and watched the fleets slicing through the waves.