After they had gone a few yards in their new direction, Antonina turned her head toward Eon. She was about to make some jocular remark about Ousanas, but a movement near the Ta’akha Maryam caught her eye.
Three men were racing away from the royal compound, as if being chased by a lion. Two of them were Ethiopian, but the third—
She stopped, hissed. Eon turned his head to follow her gaze.
The third of the three men fleeing the Ta’akha Maryam caught sight of them. He stumbled to a halt and stared. At the distance—perhaps fifty yards—Antonina couldn’t make out his features clearly, but two things were obvious.
First, he was Indian. Second, he was cursing bitterly.
An instant later, the man resumed his flight.
“Ousanas!” called out Eon.
But the hunter had already spotted the men. And, quicker than either of his two companions, deduced the truth. Ousanas sprang on Eon and Antonina like a lion, swept them up, one in each arm, and tackled them to the ground.
The impact knocked the wind out of Antonina. The incredible explosion which followed stunned her half-senseless.
She watched, paralyzed, as the royal compound erupted. At first, because of shock, she didn’t realize what she was seeing. A paralyzing noise—rapid series of noises, actually, blurring together—was followed by a huge cloud of billowing dust. Then, within a split second, she saw great stones moving. Some of the smaller pieces were flung high into the sky, but most of the massive slabs which made up the Ta’akha Maryam simply heaved up. Seconds later, the compound began to collapse. The building which held the throne room was the first to go, buckling like a broken bridge. That set off a chain reaction, in which the toppling walls of one room or building caused its neighbor to cave in as well. The sound of screams was buried beneath the uproar of collapsing masonry. By the time the process ground to a halt, perhaps a minute later, over a third of the Ta’akha Maryam was nothing but a heap of rubble. The noise of destruction faded into a chill silence—except for one faint shriek of agony, spilling across the dust-clouded landscape like a trail of blood.
Long before that time, Antonina realized what had happened. The first billowing gust had brought a sharp and familiar smell to her nostrils.
Gunpowder. Lots of gunpowder.
The Malwa Empire had struck. King Kaleb, the negusa nagast of Ethiopia, was lying somewhere under those stones. So was his older son, Wa’zeb, the heir. And so—if she hadn’t insisted on a last-minute change of plans—would have been Antonina herself and Eon. She realized—dimly; still half-dazed—that the men who lit the fuse had waited until they were sure that she and Eon were about to enter the royal compound.
Painfully, Antonina levered herself up. They wouldn’t know until the rubble was searched, but she strongly suspected that Eon was the sole survivor of the royal dynasty. And he was not even a man yet, by the customs of his people—not until the morrow’s ceremony.
Eon Bisi Dakuen, Prince of Axum, was already on his feet. He was staring at the figure of Ousanas. The dawazz, his great spear in hand, was racing after the three men who had emerged from the Ta’akha Maryam. They had a two-hundred-yard lead on Ousanas, and were running as fast as they could, but it only took Antonina a moment to gauge the outcome.
Eon, apparently, reached the same conclusion. He took two steps in that direction, as if to follow, but stopped. “Ousanas is the greatest hunter anyone in Axum ever saw,” he murmured. “Those are dead men.”
He turned, stooped, and helped Antonina to her feet. His face seemed far older than his years. Bleak, and bitter.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “I must organize the search for my father and brother.” A wince of pain came. “And Zaia, and our daughter Miriam, and Tarabai. And my adviser Garmat. All of them were in there.”
She nodded. “I’ll help. Some of my people were in the Ta’akha Maryam, too.”
Eon’s eyes scanned the rubble. “The Roman delegation should be safe. The section of the royal compound where you were housed is still standing.”