LITMIR.BIZ

       • Prologue • Deliverance

      The drums thundered.

      Warriors of the Saaur sang their battle chants, preparing for the struggle to come. Tattered war banners hung limply from bloodied lances as thick smoke shrouded the sky from horizon to horizon. Green faces marked with yellow and red paint watched the western skies, where fires cast crimson and ocher light against the black shroud of smoke, blocking the vanishing sun and the familiar tapestry of the western evening stars.

      Jarwa, Sha-shahan of the Seven Nations, Ruler of the Empire of Grass, Lord of the Nine Oceans, could not tear his gaze away from the destruction. All day he had watched the great fires burn, and even across the vast distance the howls of the victors and the cries of their victims had carried through the afternoon. Winds that once carried the sweet scent of flowers or the rich aroma of spices from the market now carried the acrid stench of charred wood and burned flesh. He knew without looking that those behind were bracing for the coming trial, resigned in their hearts that the battle was lost and the race would die.

      ‘My lord,’ said Kaba, his Shieldbearer and lifelong companion.

      Jarwa turned to his oldest friend and saw the concern etched faintly around his eyes. Kaba was an unreadable mask to all but Jarwa; the Sha-shahan could read him as a shaman reads a lore scroll. ‘What is it?’

      ‘The Pantathian is here.’

      Jarwa nodded, but he remained motionless. Powerful hands closed in frustration over the hilt of his battle-sword, Tual-masok – Blood Drinker in the ancient tongue – far more a symbol of office than the crown he had worn only on rare state occasions. He pushed its point down into the soil of his beloved Tabar, the oldest nation on the world of Shila. For seventeen years he had fought the invaders as they had driven his hordes back to the heartland of the Empire of Grass.

      When he had taken the sword of the Sha-shahan while still a youth, warriors of Saaur had passed in review, filling the ancient stone causeway that spanned the Takador Narrows, the channel connecting the Takador Sea and the Castak Ocean. One hundred riders – a century – side by side, rode past, one hundred centuries to a jatar: ten thousand warriors. Ten jatar to a host, and ten host to a horde. At the height of his power, seven hordes answered Jarwa’s battle horns, seven million warriors. Always on the move, their horses grazed the Empire of Grass, while children grew to adulthood playing and fighting among the ancient wagons and tents of the Saaur, stretching from the city of Cibul to the farthest frontier, ten thousand miles distant; it was an empire so vast that teams of horses and riders, never stopping their gallop, would take a full turning of the moon and half again to ride from the capital to the frontier, twice that from one border to the other.

      Each season, one horde rested near the capital, while the others moved along the frontiers of the great nation, ensuring the peace by conquering all who refused tribute. Along the shores of the nine great oceans, a thousand cities sent food, riches, and slaves to the court of the Sha-shahan. And once a ten-year, the champions of the seven hordes gathered for the great games at Cibul, ancient capital of the Empire of Grass. Over the span of centuries. the Saaur had gathered all of Shila under the Sha-shahan’s banner, all but the most distant nations on the far side of the world. It was Jarwa’s dream to be the Sha-shahan who at last realized the dream of his ancestors, to bring the last city into the Empire and rule the entire world.

      Four great cities had fallen to Jarwa’s hordes, and another five had surrendered without a struggle, leaving fewer than a dozen outside the Empire. Then the riders of the Patha Horde had come to the gates of Ahsart, City of Priests. Soon disaster followed.

      Jarwa steeled himself against the sounds of agony that carried through the twilight. The cries were of his people as they were led to the feasting pits. From what those few able to escape had said, the captives who were quickly slaughtered were perhaps the fortunate ones, along with those who had fallen in battle. The invaders, it was said, could capture the souls of the dying, to keep them as playthings, tormenting them for eternity as the shades of the slain were denied their final place among their ancestors, riding in the ranks of the Heavenly Horde.

      Jarwa looked down upon the ancient home of his people from his vantage atop the plateau. Here, less than a half day’s ride from Cibul, the ragged remnants of his once-mighty army camped. Even in this the darkest hour of the Empire of Grass, the presence of the Sha-shahan caused his warriors to stand tall, throw back their heads, and look toward the distant enemy with contempt. But no matter the posture of these warriors, their Sha-shahan saw something in their eyes no Lord of the Nine Oceans had ever seen before in the countenance of a Saaur warrior: fear.

      Jarwa sighed, and turned without words to return to his tent. Knowing full well that no choice was left, still he hated to face the alien. Pausing before his own tent, Jarwa said, ‘Kaba, I have no faith in this priest from another world.’ He spit the word.

      Kaba nodded, his scales grey from years of the hard life on horseback and from serving his Sha-shahan. ‘I know you have doubts, my lord. But your Cupbearer and your Loremaster concur. We have no choice.’

      ‘There

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