Stupid, really—even idiotic. Eon’s great strength carried him to the parapet and cleared it quickly enough of the handful of Malwa soldiers who guarded his section. Just as Alexander’s strength had carried him to the parapet at one of the cities he conquered from the Mallians. And then, just as happened to Alexander, he was isolated atop the parapet when the defenders pushed aside the scaling ladders.
Finding himself now the target of every Malwa bowman within range, and with nowhere to take shelter from the arrows on the inside of the parapet, Eon was forced to emulate Alexander again. He leapt into the interior of the fortress itself—alone, but at least no longer as vulnerable to missiles. There he took his stand next to a small tree, just as the Macedonian had done—although this was not a fig tree as in the Alexandrian legend—and began fiercely defending himself against a small mob of Malwa attackers.
* * *
The Malwa commander died not long afterward. By the time the sarwen poured over the walls of the fortress, taking no prisoners in their fury, the commander had managed to organize a rear guard action which enabled him to lead a small column of soldiers down to the beach. There, in a brief but savage melee, he tried to stop the Axumite marines who were putting the Malwa ships to the torch.
Tried, and failed, and died himself in the doing. In his case, died in the actual combat, not in the slaughter which followed as the sarwen pursued the routed Malwa soldiers for miles inland until the fall of night gave the few Malwa survivors blessed sanctuary.
There would be no mercy for Malwa that day. Although, the next day, the sarwen retrieved the body of the Malwa commander from the piled corpses on the beach and gave him a solemn burial. That was done at the command of Ezana, the leader of the Dakuen sarwe, who also commanded the erection of a small, simple gravestone over the commander’s grave.
Another nation’s warriors might have mutilated that body. But the Dakuen soldiers, like their commander, came from a different tradition. One whose origins in tribal custom was not so far removed. Beneath the civilized names of regiments, lurked the not-so-dim faces of old totems. And it was that tradition which gave honor to the commander.
A hunting people will kill a tiger, but they will not dishonor it. Not even—especially not even—when the tiger, in its death throes, manages to slay the leader of the hunting party.
Eon bisi Dakuen had gained his treasured boarding scar. The wound, rather. The scar itself would never form, because the negusa nagast of Ethiopia would die from it before it could.
* * *
His soldiers had known, from the moment, still fighting their way over the rampart, they saw the spear thrust which took Eon in the belly as he fought alone inside the fortress. The knowing fueled the rage which destroyed the Malwa fleet and slaughtered Malwa’s men.
Eon himself had known, and the knowing had fueled his own fury as he beat down his last assailants before collapsing unconscious to the packed-earth floor.
Ousanas had known, from the moment he reached the body and examined the wound. The young king he had reared in the way of kingship since he was a boy would be gone from this earth within a time measured by, at most, a few days. And for the first time in years, the man named Ousanas had no philosophical insights and no quip to make and no sarcasm to utter and no grin to present to the universe. He fell to his knees and simply wept, and wept, and wept.
And Antonina had known, from the moment she saw the first Ethiopian warship pull away from the breakwater and begin rowing toward the flagship on which she had remained throughout the battle. Slow, solemn oarstrokes, accompanied by a rhythmic drum beat which was not so much a time-keeper as a lament.
In truth, deep inside, she had known from the moment she saw the blazing fury with which Axum’s marines cut down the Malwa sailors attempting to protect the ships along the strand. Ethiopian sarwen were always ferocious in battle, to be sure, but this went beyond ferocity. This was pure slaughter, animal rage tearing at flesh, the bloodlust of maddened wolverines.