Seven Sorcerers(21)
“One of the Old Breed had come to me a century earlier, urging me to quit the silver plain and take my people across the ocean. He led his own tribe of refugees, survivors of Zyung’s early conquests, and promised a new land across the waves where the God-King’s legions could not reach. I should have listened then, but it was a century later when the Manslayers of Zyung reached Orbusa. Only then, watching my people cut down and their fields set to the torch… only when the conquerors burned my beautiful temple and forced me to wrath… only then did I hear the wisdom in what Iardu the Shaper had said to me. More of Zyung’s legions would arrive to replace the ones my power had annihilated. I had no wish for further slaughter. I only wanted to protect those I loved. An exodus was the only answer.
“I gathered together the surviving tribes of Orbusa and ordained Ywatha as their King. We marched toward the shores of the Cryptic Sea. Many were the hardships and sufferings of the Orbusans as they migrated. Once we came to the edge of the great continent, we built ships from the wood of an ancient forest. For long months that tiny fleet endured the waves and the storms. Many were lost to the ocean’s wild hunger.
“I flew ahead of the ships and found the lesser continent that Iardu the Shaper had promised. His people had fanned out across this new land, yet none had claimed the golden lands beyond the Pearl Cliffs. There I advised Ywatha to build his new capital, and there his son Ybondu was crowned as the Second King. Before Ywatha died, content that his life had been most fruitful, he named this new land Mumbaza.
“I served Ybondu and his people as I had served their ancestors. I aided them through early wars and kept them safe from plagues and famines. I tried my best to secure peace for them. Before the Usurper Elhathym returned to Yaskatha eight years ago, Mumbaza had enjoyed a hundred years of unbroken peace. Nor was this the first era to be blessed with the absence of war.”
Khama sighed. “Yet always war returns, as our tiny world spins among the stars. Perhaps it is an inevitable part of what we are. You, me, the Old Breed, all of us slaves to unknown forces that drive the universe. Now Zyung rules the entirety of the great continent, and he reaches across the Golden Sea for the Land of the Five Cities. Now we must go to war again, or choose to be slaves.”
Khama had almost forgotten all of this during his two decades as a goatherd. Taking the form and life of a simple man, he had almost become that man. Part of him was glad that Iardu had shaken him from the peaceful dream, while another part resented the Shaper for robbing him of a few more years of bliss. Yet Khama could never abandon the people of Mumbaza. He loved them deeply, and they were all his family. He could no longer hide them from the blazing eyes of Zyung. Now they must stand and fight. They would live as a free nation, or die as a legend of freedom. Khama would die with them if he must. He would not give himself to the sway of the God-King’s power. Not in the past, and not now.
I will never serve him. Better to face annihilation.
Iardu must feel the same way.
Khama wondered if the Shaper would truly find others of the Old Breed to stand and oppose Zyung’s invasion. How many of the Dreaming Ones could be awakened? How many of them would make a difference in the face of ultimate power? How many of them even still existed as entities separate from the living world itself?
Khama had no answers to these questions, so he refocused his thoughts on the battle to come. The first strike in the final war for freedom. Many of these ships would perish, and thousands of Men would die. Yet the Feathered Serpent would do what he could to protect the dream of his beloved Mumbaza.
Undutu’s face was grim. He stared at the blue waters rushing past the prow of his flagship. The Bird of War and D’zan’s Kingspear led the triple fleet.
“Zyung was once of the Old Breed?” asked the young lion.
“He was the greatest of us all,” said Khama. “Also the cruelest.”
Undutu swallowed. Perhaps he regretted rushing toward the invaders so readily. Yet it was too late now. The King could not change his course.
Undutu waved his hand toward the horizon. “Bah! This tyrant is only another sorcerer. Let the people of his great continent crawl before him like insects. We will face him and die like Men. We will tear his ships from the sky and make his Manslayers scream like weeping children. He may destroy us, Khama, but he will remember us.”
Khama grabbed the young lion by his shoulder. He smiled.
“Do not forget that Iardu stands with us,” he told the King. “Even now he travels with the Vodsdaughter to enlist more sorcerers. Together we will stand against Zyung as none have ever dared to stand. Remember too that nothing ever truly ends. Life and death are twin illusions.”