“A traitor to his own people!” says Dronaja. “Asham, help us…”
Jaruna still stands there, dazed, holding his bow in one hand and a loose arrow in the other. He slowly puts the arrow back in his quiver.
“What was that in his hand?”
Dronaja picks it up off the dusty ground. A bolt-wand. Tipped with blue-white astrate. The chief holds it in his shaking hands for a moment and then drops it like a dead rat.
“Hatvan was correct,” he says. “Some manner of Akkadian weapon.”
“Asham have mercy,” says Ayan. “We have brought sin into your own Temple.”
“Yodhana came in from below,” Dronaja says. “That means the tunnels are compromised. Kripa, Hatvan—check the windows. Look for imperial movement. Protect the mujashatriya. I shall return.”
The old native runs past us, grabs a few bags from the anteroom, tears the rug from the floor and leaps straight down into the darkness.
Kripa and Hatvan burst into action. They run around the perimeter of the main sanctuary, peer out from each of the thin windows and then slam their shutters. Kripa goes to the main door and hefts the huge wooden crosslatch up and over its hinge, barring it shut.
Jaruna stands in the middle of the sanctuary. He rewraps his fingerguards and flexes his bowstring.
“Dust clouds from the west,” says Hatvan. “A phalanx moves.”
“Damn!” Kripa says. “It is a trap! The sinners must know all about our plan! They mean to finish us off in this Temple!”
“But how could they think to attack a Sun Temple?” says Ayan. “Even for the Akkadians—do they not also worship Asham?”
“Do not be a fool, woman!” says Kripa. “There is nothing the sinners would not defile! Curse Yodhana, that despicable traitor! May Asham transform his corpse into a chandelier—to hang by day and burn by night!”
The ground shakes beneath our feet. Dronaja apparently just collapsed a tunnel. Actually, it sounds like he blew up a tunnel. That explains what the bags he grabbed are—flamecraft.
“Jaruna,” Kiddu says. “What do you want us to do?”
The mystic’s attention snaps from his bow. It’s not comforting how young and afraid he looks.
“Go with my sister,” he says. “Take cover behind that pillar.”
We obey, run past the threshold and into the main sanctuary and huddle behind the left-rear pillar. It’s pretty thick, good cover from the direction of the Temple’s main door. But we’re still exposed to the open hole at the top of the domed ceiling.
“Mujashatriya!” Kripa says. “There are arrows and other weapons in the other room. What would you have us do?”
Jaruna gestures to his sister. “Guard her.”
He runs behind a pillar, kneels, aims his bow towards the ceiling hole. Now I feel a little more secure.
We wait. My teeth won’t stop chattering and now I’m worried it’s annoying to the others. I wonder, skeptically, if the Akkadians have rules prohibiting them from storming a native Temple.
Ayan begins muttering prayers to Asham. Kripa takes a guard position next to our pillar and hefts his big club. Hatvan joins his larger comrade, expertly twirling his rope-and-weights around in a deadly gyre.
Even through shuttered windows I can hear thunderous marching outside, crushing against the building. Another underground explosion rocks the floor like a miniature earthquake.
“Lord Asham,” says Ayan, “deliver us—”
A huge voice, echoing, distorted, magically amplified:
MYSTIC.
WE KNOW YOU ARE IN THERE.
DROP YOUR WEAPON.
Kripa is bewildered. He looks over to Hatvan but the other warrior’s attention is focused on the main Temple door.
There’s a new sound coming from the door. A low, pulsing hum. I peek around the pillar to look.
Then the door shivers suddenly, unnaturally—and its giant latch lifts itself up and over the lock as if thrown by an unseen hand.
The door bursts open and hoplites stream in, shields and spearpoints like a moving spiked wall.
Something flies towards the hoplites. It’s a sparking flamecraft—lobbed by Dronaja.
A tall helmeted figure behind the shieldwall raises a scepter studded with black gems.
The flamecraft arcs through the air, slowly, slowing—and stops. It hovers above the ground.
The man with the scepter flicks his weapon and in the same instant the flamecraft flies back towards its thrower and explodes. The concussion blasts Dronaja across the floor. The heatwave knocks against my face. Hatvan and Kripa both stumble, and Jaruna rolls away from the flames.
The mystic had been training his bow on the ceiling hole. When he gets up and takes aim again, there are two sorcerers looming over the skywindow, staffs pointed straight down upon him, helmet gems glowing bright against the dark sky.
DROP THE BOW.
The man with the scepter, now safely out of Jaruna’s aim, steps forward from behind his wall of hoplite shields. I recognize the distorted voice now, and the helmet with four gems. It is Satrap Nimrod.
Jaruna keeps pointing his bow at the sorcerers on the ceiling.
ARE YOU DEAF,
SAVAGE?
“Sinners!” says Ayan. “Asham will never forgive you for defiling his Temple!”
With his free hand, Satrap Nimrod adjusts the faceplate on his helmet, exposing his bare mouth.
“Does the Sun God forgive the natives when they stockpile weapons in his Temple? Or when they dump murdered corpses on the Temple floor?”
Across the room a few of the hoplites have broken off from the phalanx and are now dragging Yodhana’s corpse back behind their lines. I can’t see what happened to Dronaja, or if he’s even still alive.
The flamecraft explosion has ignited two tapestries on the far wall and smoke begins to fill the air.
Jaruna does not lower his bow. He seems to be muttering something to himself.
“Let it be said clearly!” says the satrap. “It was your people who brought the battle here, not ours. Now surrender, and we can end this, with no more killing or destruction. I would prefer not to harm the princess of Harrappa.”
Ayan’s hand shoots up over her veil.
Princess Ayan.
Well. That certainly explains some things.
“When were you planning on telling us, your highness?” Kiddu says softly.
“Who is that?” Nimrod says.
I grab her arm and shush her. I want to smack her for drawing attention to us. Ayan glares at her too.
“Is that the beast liberator girl?” Nimrod chuckles, sounding almost kind-hearted. “So you really did turn traitor. Well, my offer extends to you as well.”
“Girl!” Kripa says, without taking his eyes off Nimrod, “If you surrender, I will kill you before you take three steps.”
“Good,” says Kiddu. “I’d rather get killed than get tortured by the Empire.”
Jaruna ignores all this, still muttering to himself, still aiming at one of the two sorcerers high above, his bowstring drawn back to his ear. I squint and try to piece together what he’s saying:
“What do you see? I see the bird. What do you see? I see the head of the bird. What do you see? The eye of the bird. What do you see? Only blackness.”
“Enough of this absurd standoff,” Nimrod says. “Sorcerers—”
Jaruna lets his arrow fly.