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Sinbad and the Lost Continent – Excerpt

The following is an excerpted chapter from my upcoming novella Sinbad and the Lost Continent, a lost world adventure inspired by the 1001 Arabian Nights. Enjoy, and be sure to check out the full novella once it comes out!

It was before daybreak when I awoke. I climbed up from the hatch onto the Black Tiger’s upper deck. Not that I had been sleeping well the past several nights. It had nothing to do with the fact that there never was much else to do aboard our small and humble vessel. I had merged so deeply into the water’s simple and monotonous rhythm that I lost track of the many days that had flown past since we set sail from Baghdad. After we had entered the Persian Gulf from the mouth of the Tigris and then advanced eastward into the Indian Ocean, nothing but the sea’s blue vastness had surrounded us. A landsman like me could lose his sanity when faced with such endless horizons, unable to cope with its full enormity, but the sailors told me they relished it, seeing it as the ultimate freedom.

Omar had deduced on our compass two to three days before that we were nearing the world’s equator. I inferred that the geographic word “equator” meant the world’s waistline, assuming he and the scholars at the Madrasa in Baghdad were right in claiming it was round instead of flat. Beyond that, we did not know our precise location.

I started to wonder whether Kishore was right to doubt our destination’s existence. He had never bought the other Sinbad’s accounts of his seven voyages to exotic faraway lands and the riches he had earned from them, even if that other Sinbad’s small yet ample investment of those riches had allowed me to purchase that old Greek map as well as the provisions for our voyage. As Kishore himself had claimed, neither he nor his father had ever witnessed sights as fantastical as the other Sinbad, and so many of his fellow sailors, had boasted of. No rocs, no giants, nothing like those at all.

Still, I was happy that Kishore had not only let me use his father’s old dhow, but also came aboard with me himself. If we were to perish out here in the heart of the ocean, at least my dearest friend would be beside me.

I was still groggy when I traipsed to the gunwale on the dhow’s port side, expecting another day of nothing but the unending blue ocean in front of us. I rubbed my half-shut eyes, gazed at the sunlit horizon, and blinked in disbelief.

It was land! Or was it my blurry vision playing tricks on me again? I closed and reopened my eyes, rubbing them again on my tunic’s sleeve. Still the green sliver of a hilltop rose before the rising sun.

 As the Black Tiger drifted eastward, the sliver expanded into a thicker, dark green band. An unmistakably solid band, implanted as it rose from the water. The faint cawing of gulls rose over the splash of the boat’s wake.

My whole body trembled with excitement. “Land! Allah is merciful, for we have found land!” I yelled.

I rushed back to the hatch and opened it. Kishore was already scampering up to the deck, with the rest of the crew climbing the ladder behind him. “What is it, Sinbad?” he asked.

“Land!” I repeated as I thrust my finger through the air beyond the port side. “See for yourself, my friend!”

He adjusted his turban and rubbed his eyelids before squinting in the distance. His eyes widened and brightened in the middle, reflecting the glow of the rising sunlight behind the approaching island. “Holy Krishna, I don’t believe it!”

“It has to be it!” I spoke.

“What? Land? Of course it’s land!” Kishore said. “Must be an island.”

I shook my head like a swabbing mop. “No, no, my friend, it could only be Lemuria, the lost continent of legend, like on our map!”

Kishore’s smile vanished, with a dubious look at me replacing it. “Oh, I don’t know about that, Sinbad. You know we’ve never been to this part of the ocean before, so it could be any number of islands out here. It might even be one of those islands that other Sinbad spoke about in those stories he told everyone.”

“Well, then, let’s look at the map and then decide. Omar?”

Omar emerged on the deck upon calling, plucked out the old map from his sash, and unfolded it in his hands. I bent over next to him and followed his finger as it traced our course to date until it slowed to a point.

 “The latitude given here matches what I noted from the stars last night,” Omar said, his nasal voice brimming with confidence.” Right down on the equator. The longitude should be close as well.”

Earlier in our voyage, Omar told me that he could determine how far north or south our dhow stood relative to the globe’s equator, by calculating the angle between the horizon and one of the stars. He could also tell how far west or east we were from our destination, and even from Baghdad, by measuring the distance between the moon and a given star. Once he did that, he would pull out a book of tables, which he claimed was a copy by the mathematicians that studied what they called al-Jabr, and then compare its figures with his measurements. It left me feeling foolish to know that a man could find out where he stood in the vastness of the world the way Omar did.

Captain Rabih looked over our shoulders and stroked a long, matted beard as fierce as his eyes. “Even if it isn’t your fabled Lemuria, it’s as good a place to rest as any,” he said. “Not to mention restocking our provisions. There might even be fresh water there.”

The corners of Kishore’s lip turned downward in a concerned frown. “Those gulls… those gulls…”

“What about the gulls?” I asked.

“They sound strange. Not like gulls at all. Or like any kind of bird I’ve ever heard. Can’t you hear them?”

He was right. They did not sound like the typical persistent, annoying caws of seagulls I had heard when our dhow sailed along the Persian Gulf, but rather a more prolonged screeching. I would have dismissed it as simply a different species of gull had I not recalled what Theognostos had claimed as he sold me the map.

If you think the giant birds of prey, great serpents, and oversized fish of that other Sinbad’s tales are terrible, or hard to believe without first seeing them, you’ve not yet heard a word yet about the creatures of Lemuria.

I looked down at the map again, taking in the assortment of hideous dragons, crocodiles, serpents, and other reptiles that populated it the way sea monsters would populate the seas in other charts. Those were parts of the legend I had never taken so seriously, or even paid much attention to. Why would I, when my thoughts and eyes were focused on the treasure supposed to be hidden throughout the continent? Treasure was real. Jewels, coins, bracelets, and amulets I could touch with my own fingers and carry in my own hands, but not dragons or other monsters.

The green slopes continued to reach up from the horizon toward the rising sun as we watched from behind the gunwale. I made out a peak higher than the others with gray smoke billowing from its summit, much like the range of mountains on the map. My hope soared that we had sighted Lemuria itself, my confidence swelling with it. Somewhere deep in the legendary island’s tropical forests before us awaited treasure more ancient and more valuable than the other Sinbad and his fantastical stories could imagine, at least if the Greek merchant’s story was true.

I imagined us loading the Black Tiger to her very limits with heaps of treasure and returning to Baghdad rich as the Caliph himself. Or at least rich enough that when they praised Sinbad the sailor’s wealth, they would not know which Sinbad they were talking about. No longer would I have to steal, or to make the barest living carrying loads on my head as a porter. Furthermore, I could also come back with stories as fantastic as the other Sinbad’s, though I did not know what those stories would be yet.

Bestial cries of immense volume interrupted my thoughts, screeches and yells that were drawing closer. The tar-black likenesses of birds flapped their wings toward us from the shore, their caws louder and clearer than earlier. Their bodies expanded before us while they advanced, their wingspans appearing to stretch longer than a riverman’s raft. I realized to my amazement that they were bigger than any birds I had ever seen—if they even were birds. Their ebony wings, which sprouted triplets of glinting claws from their bends, shone like thick leather rather than feathers beneath the morning sunlight.

What could such creatures be? Not even the other Sinbad had described anything like them in his stories. At least the giant rocs were just an oversized kind of eagle according to him, but these bizarre leather-winged creatures on the other hand could not even be called birds!

“The map has a picture of one of those labeled in Greek,” Omar said. “It’s called a pterodactyl.”

“A what?” I asked.

“Pterodactyl. A ‘winged-finger’.”

“You mean like a bat? And do you know what they eat?”

Omar frowned, his olive complexion turning pale. “I am afraid not.”

Nonetheless, the creatures’ beaks, long and piercing like spear points, suggested an answer to my question that chilled my blood.

If Kishore’s face were not as dark as it was, it would have blanched like a washed-out sky the way he looked at the approaching pterodactyls. “Why are they coming toward us? Like they’re attacking us?”

The captain grabbed the hilt of his saber. “Because they’re hungry. We ‘re food to them. Draw your weapons and prepare to defend ourselves!”

Sinbad faces off against pterosaurs near the coast of the lost continent of Lemuria!

They didn’t waste any time. As soon as we grabbed our weapons, the foremost of the flying creatures reared for a moment, spreading out its wings before folding them inward and diving toward me. I sidestepped out of the way, but its beak slashed across my flank like a sword’s stroke, cutting through the fabric of my tunic and skin to draw hot blood. I flinched and began to hunch over, sharp pain slicing through me as I gripped the hilt of the scimitar I had acquired aboard the dhow and slid it out of my belted sash. Before I could fully draw my weapon, another pterodactyl grabbed my right forearm with its beak and tugged at it. I punched one of its beady, violent yellow eyes with my free fist to break its hold. I then freed the scimitar from my sash and slashed off the leather-winged devil’s head.

That only seemed to infuriate the flock even more. They swarmed around us like wasps over the deck. We brandished swords and knives while the airborne reptiles bombarded us with their stabbing beaks and razor-sharp finger-claws. Over the increasing din of cursing men and shrieking creatures, a sailor screamed when one of the beasts impaled him through chest like a stake through the heart, then lifted his body vertically above the boat and flew off. 

Another pterodactyl swooped toward Captain Rabih from behind. The captain would have met the same fate as the first sailor had another sailor not stopped his attacker by puncturing and then slicing its wing with his sword. A third creature ambushed this sailor from behind, pinching his tunic’s collar with its beak until it tore off. Just when the pterodactyl jabbed again at him, I threw myself at it and sent my sword through its neck exactly like the last one I had killed.

It seemed that for every one of the flying monsters we slew, at least two more darted in to take its place. My muscles burned with strain and sweat, with sprayed blood slickening my skin, as the creatures’ wings flapped furiously, whipping up an evil zephyr over me. If they did not massacre us with their relentless diving attacks, I realized, the pterodactyls would fight us to exhaustion. Then they would swoop down and feast on our flesh. All we could do was endure them the best we could.

Just behind me, I heard a desperate holler. It was Kishore! A pterodactyl had snatched him by the arm and picked him up from the deck like an eagle might hoist a snake with its beak. He thrashed his limbs and kept screaming for a help we could not provide as we watched the infernal demon haul him back toward the continent’s shore.

I closed my eyes for a brief second, trying to erase the picture of his upcoming death from my mind.

I could not let him go like that. I quickly hacked my way through more of the pterodactyls to the port side, leaped over the gunwale and plunged into the tropical water below, my scimitar’s blade in my teeth. The times Kishore and I swam across the Tigris jogged my memory as I threw out my arms in breast strokes in the direction the pterodactyl had flown with him. My arms burned as I swam, my mind filling like an endless foundation with our days as boys in the slums racing down the streets, chasing dogs, and pilfering only what we needed, but never more, from merchants’ stalls or patrons’ purses in the bazaar. I swam and swam, recalling the stories we told while feasting on whatever we could obtain either through purchase or plunder.

Even our secrets we shared, not least of which was Kishore coming to feel for men the way I felt for women. It was an admission that shocked me at first, as I had been raised to consider such feelings as sinful, but in the end, it had no bearing on our friendship. Besides, for all I knew, Kishore’s faith minded it less than mine did.

Those memories, and secrets, kept feeding me like nectar, giving me the strength I needed to propel myself all the way to the beach. When my fingers first dug into the damp sand beneath the surf, I could hear my old friend’s screams persist overhead, even though his voice was hoarse. While catching my breath, I exhaled a quick sigh of relief that Kishore still lived. The pterodactyl was taking him to a tongue of headland atop some slate-gray cliffs to my right, with several more of its kind bedded down on top of it. That had to be the creatures’ nesting site.

I scurried to the shade of coconut palm trees that bordered the opposite side of the white sandy beach and wove my way around them toward the headland’s cliffs. Vines thick as rope festooned the cliff that touched the jungle further inland, allowing me to scramble up the jagged face using the same holds and moves that enabled Kishore and I to climb Baghdad’s buildings, where we would gaze at stars as big as dates from the rooftops while he taught me his native Tamil. Still, the cliff must have reared at least twenty feet from foot to lip, so it was with stretched and aching forelimbs, left even more painful by the long swim, that I reached the headland’s top.

I peeked carefully across the stony surface. Pterodactyls watched over nests of branches, leaves, and seaweed, with numerous bones and chalk-white droppings strewn between them. The creatures did not nestle on the ground with wings folded along their sides like birds, but instead stood on all fours like bats, the claws on their wings’ bends acting as front feet. One of the nests had a lively brood of tinier pterodactyls hopping around on it, chirping with gleeful hunger as their mother began lowering her catch to them.

That catch was Kishore, his movements now slow, fighting with every ounce of energy to stay alive.

I clutched my scimitar and raced toward the nest, maneuvering around the younger creatures while dodging their winged architects’ piercing beaks. The mother pterodactyl dumped Kishore into her nest, and her famished brood pounced on him. I didn’t know if I could get to my old friend before the little devils pecked out his eyes, or his life. They were hungry and wasted no time swarming over him.

By the time I scampered to his side, they had already pocked his skin with cuts and deep wounds that bled while he shielded his face with his arms.

I swung my weapon over Kishore, slicing one of the hatchlings in half. Its mother screeched the loudest I’d heard yet, her fury absolute over her baby’s death. She launched herself at me. I ducked underneath her, grabbed Kishore by his shoulders, and propped him up while he shook off the other hatchlings. The puny creatures continued to peck at and harangue him, while their mother and her companions did the same to me, despite my best efforts to keep them at bay with my sword. I sliced it through the air, over and over.

A pterodactyl snapped onto my sword-arm and pulled me off the headland, my arm still wrapped around Kishore. It began carrying both of us, the flapping of its wings unsteady as we weighed it down, two men apparently too much for her to carry. Yet, to our utter amazement, the creature lifted us higher into the sky. The world began to shrink beneath our dangling legs.

“What’s it planning to do, Sinbad?” Kishore cried over the beating of the reptile’s wings.

The pterodactyl shook its head furiously, reminding me again of the fury of eagles holding snakes in their beaks.

“Whatever it is, don’t look down!” I yelled.

A thin dark shaft whizzed up from the jungle’s edge to puncture the pterodactyl’s breast. After emitting a pain-filled screech that diminished into a staccato croak, the aerial beast released its grip on me, and we plummeted alongside its limp body into the ocean.

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Carthage Atlantica – Opening Excerpts

Cover design for my alternate history novella Carthage Atlantica

These are the first two chapters from my newest novella, Carthage Atlantica, an alternate-history story about ancient Carthaginians from North Africa discovering North America (“Atlantis”) in 200 BC. You can purchase the full novella on Amazon.

If you wish to hear these chapters read aloud, check out this reading by Brian Cole on YouTube.

Chapter One

200 BC, in an alternate timeline

The deckhouse door slammed open as the navigator barged in, his russet-brown face soaked with sweat. “Baal-Hammon be praised, we’ve sighted land at last!”

Isceradin’s cup of wine slipped down from his grasp as he took in the sailor’s words. It took his wife Arishat’s lightning reflexes to catch it before it could shatter on the floor. Not that he would miss it too much if it did spill and break, since the liquid was well over halfway to turning into vinegar at this point. Another week at sea, and they would have nothing left to drink unless they figured out how to turn seawater fresh.

Baal-Hammon be praised, indeed.

Gisco, the stout old captain, rose from his bench and laid both hands on the navigator’s shoulder. “Are you sure you haven’t gone mad?”

“You should see for yourself, Captain,” the navigator said. “One could mistake it for nothing else!”

Little Nikkal tugged on Isceradin’s arm, her eyes gleaming with innocence and wonder. “Did they really say they’ve found land, Abba?”

He gave his daughter’s crown of curly black hair a playful rub. “We can only hope so. Let’s find out for ourselves.”

Together, Isceradin and his family followed the captain and navigator out of the deckhouse to the bow of the galley and squinted at the western horizon. It first appeared as a green line on top of the dark blue sea that grew thicker with every rhythm of the drivers’ drumming. From underneath the drumming and the sailors’ chanted shanties, there rose the frantic cawing of distant seagulls.

“You see, beloved? I told you the gods would always be at our side,” Arishat said.

“Either that, or fate has been kinder to us than usual,” Isceradin said.

He wrapped his arms around his wife’s waist and pecked the black tattooed lines on her mahogany-skinned cheek with his lips. She repaid the favor, and then their mouths locked together in an embrace tighter than the one they made with their arms. Although they had been wed for eighteen years, Isceradin had been away at the war with Rome for fifteen of those years, so Isceradin had come to savor every moment of affection like this.

“Yuck, Abba and Amma!” Nikkal cried out with her tongue sticking out.

Isceradin withdrew from the kiss with a sheepish grin. “Sorry, little one, we forgot you were watching.”

Gisco slapped Isceradin’s shoulder with a laugh. “The girl’s got to find out about those things sooner or later, my Iberian friend. And I can’t say I blame you, either. It’s a good occasion to get another taste of that sweet, dark Carthaginian flesh, isn’t it?”

The captain winked with a jab of his elbow into Isceradin’s ribs. For his part, Isceradin’s only reply was a low groan. No matter how much he considered himself a citizen of Carthage, having wetted his blade with Roman blood many times under none other than Hannibal Barca himself, Carthage would never let him forget his family’s Iberian roots. Not that he could hide them, either. Given his light tan complexion and wavy brown hair, most people would sooner confuse him with a Latin or Greek than a typical Carthaginian from Africa. For that reason, he would always appear a foreigner among his own countrymen.

Nikkal walked up to the ship’s gunwale and jumped to get a better look at the approaching landmass. “What are we going to call this place, Captain?”

“Ever heard of the story of Atlantis, young one?” Gisco answered. “This Greek philosopher named Plato wrote about it a long time ago. He said they lived on a continent in the middle of this very ocean before the god Baal-Saphon—whom the Greeks call Poseidon—sank it to punish them for their greed. So, maybe we’ll call it Atlantis in honor of that?”

“What if there are people living there?” Arishat asked. “They might have a name for it already.”

The captain held his hand over his eyes as he scanned the coastline. “If there’s people over there, I don’t see any sign of them. Not even one trail of campfire smoke coming from the trees. But, even if they were, it would probably take a while to learn their language so we could ask them. Learning languages is never quick, you know. So, we’ve got to call the place something until then.”

Isceradin shrugged. “Atlantis is as good a name as any, I suppose. Though, in the end, it’ll be up to the Sophets to decide.”

“Then I’ll pitch it to them once we reach land.”

The drivers sped up the pace of their drumming, causing the ship to accelerate towards the awaiting shore. It was the foremost of a fleet of seventy that cut westward through the sea, the violet image of the fertility goddess Tanit dancing with outspread arms on their billowing sails. Together, their drumming, chanting, and the splashing of oars merged into a cacophony as festive as any banquet back in Carthage.

When the water beneath them had faded from dark to light blue closer to the coast, all the fleet wheeled around so that their sterns faced land before backing up. Each jolted as their keels began slicing through the alabaster beach. Sailors threw down the gangplanks, and everyone aboard the vessels filed down to the sand whooping and praising Baal-Hammon and the other gods of Carthage for their merciful fortune.

From the largest and grandest of the fleet strutted Absalon and Himilco, both of whom the Senate of Carthage had appointed as Sophets to govern this new colony. Numidian youths kept the two elders cool with ostrich-plumed fans while spearmen in bronze breastplates marched before and behind them. Once the trumpets had summoned all the people onto the beach, they arranged themselves into an audience encircling the Sophets like spectators at a Greek theater.

Absalon, after taking a deep inhale of the salty air through his nostrils, was the first to speak. “My people, once citizens and subjects of Carthage, none of us can overestimate the gratitude we owe our gods for our safe passage here. Many back home said we could not make it to the end of the western ocean alive, and yet here we are, without having suffered even one casualty to the best of our knowledge.”

“And yet, our journey has only begun,” Himilco said. “We have much work to do. We have land to clear, crops to grow, and a city to build. We trust that, with all our hard work, we can claim this land for Carthage and bring forth a new age of power and prosperity for our civilization. May Baal-Hammon and all the gods continue to watch over us!”

A Gallic servant handed the pair the banner of Carthage, which hung from a mast-like cross and displayed the icon of Tanit in purple, and they planted it into the sand together. All in the audience thundered with applause.

“But first, we must learn more about this new world we’ve landed on,” Absalon said. “Who among you offers to scout for us?”

From within the crowd, Isceradin raised his hand. “I’ll lead a party inland until sundown. We’ll take note of everything this country has to offer, and maybe see if there are any human inhabitants. Then we’ll make our way back.”

Nikkal pulled at his hand. “But what if you run into trouble, Abba?”

Isceradin held his daughter up in his arms and squeezed her with loving firmness. “Then they’ll send more men to rescue us if things get too bad. But don’t you worry, if the gods have kept us alive across a whole ocean, they shouldn’t let us down here on this new land either.”

Beyond the far side of the beach, the thick greenery of deciduous trees such as oak, hickory, and chestnut rose as a towering wall. There was no telling what—or who—awaited in the shadowy depths of the forest. And, in truth, the gods had let Carthage down before. They wouldn’t have lost two wars with Rome had that not been so, despite all the sacrifices the priests had made—including the lives of dozens of noble-born children. But then, who had the heart to trouble their own child with such worry?

Isceradin gave his wife and daughter another kiss each. “If I don’t come back before sundown, keep praying for me. I’ll need all the blessings I can get.”

Chapter Two

It was not the first time Phameas had ventured into a forest. He, Isceradin, and most of the men who now made up their troop had trudged through more of that than he cared for when they were marching through northern Iberia and Gaul on their way to Rome. The muggy summertime warmth, the brushing of foliage against his face and limbs, and all the squealing mosquitoes which kept pelting his skin with itching dark bumps, were like unpleasant memories that had come back to haunt him after almost twenty years.

Back in Europe, they had to keep constant watch for packs of ravenous wolves, giant brown bears, and most of all the local Gauls, those white-skinned barbarians who were always skulking around for heads to lop off with their broadswords and claim as trophies to mount on their huts’ walls. Did such savage beasts and men lurk in the darkness beneath the woodland canopy here as well? Or maybe even worse? What was the Senate back in Carthage thinking when they sent men to this faraway place without knowing what even lay in wait?

Then again, perhaps that was the whole point of exploration. When Dido and her Phoenician expedition came to Africa to establish the trading colony that would become Carthage six centuries ago, they would have undertaken similar risks. And, it had to be admitted, back in those days, it was the very native Africans from whom Phameas and most other Carthaginians were descended that those Phoenician colonists had to fear.

So far, an hour had passed since the scouting party first penetrated the forest from the beach. Other than the occasional scurrying small creature or fluttering bird, they had yet to spot anything of interest. If nothing else, the profusion of trees here would make plentiful timber for building the new colony. Phameas had overheard some suggesting the name Atlantis, after the legendary continent that had sunk under the sea, but he would have preferred something that didn’t imply an eventual doomsday. On the other hand, “New Carthage” had already been given to a colony set up on the southern Iberian coast, and he’d be hard pressed to think of something more imaginative himself.

Another mosquito buzzed too close to Phameas’s neck for comfort. He slapped it down into a tiny pulp. “This remind you of home, Iberian?”

Isceradin snorted. “For the last time, my family is from the southern part of the peninsula, near New Carthage. It’s scrubland over there, not dense forest like this. You of all men should know that, Phameas.”

“Sorry, then, my officer. It’s only that I’m still getting used to the thought of you bedding my sister.”

“Really? You’ve had eighteen years to ‘get used to it’. And, not to boast, but she couldn’t be better off nowadays. If there really are any natives here, she’ll make quite a killing selling her textiles to them.”

“If they have anything worthy to buy them with.”

An unpleasant whiff slithered into Phameas’s nose. It was the stench of decayed flesh, like a body that lain on the battlefield for too long. Something must have died nearby. He unsheathed his falcata and probed the undergrowth with it, following the smell the way a bloodhound might.

Something cracked under his sandal. Bone. Right there, where the rotting stink was strongest, a whole human skeleton lay. Blood and scraps of flesh were still clinging to the remains, and the skull had cracked in half to reveal moldy, wrinkled fragments of brain tissue. Even after all the Romans and others he’d mutilated as a soldier of Carthage, Phameas recoiled from the sight with a yelp, nausea pouring into his insides.

“We’ve got to go back!” he said. “I’m not walking around here any longer!”

The other scouts huddled close to him, gasping and stuttering with horror as they looked upon the morbid remains. Even Isceradin’s face blanched a shade paler than usual. With a grimace, the Iberian knelt over the bones and picked up a wooden stick that lay near the skull. Hafted to it was a flint point stained dark red with dried blood.

“There are people in this land, we know that from this,” Isceradin said. “But it appears they’re still using stone tools.”

“That might not be too bad for us,” one of the other soldiers said. “It means that, if we get into trouble with them, we can hit them harder than they hit us.”

“But we don’t want to get into trouble with them,” Phameas said. “We ought to head back and stay away from those savages. I knew coming here was a bad idea!”

Isceradin held his palm out. “Hold on, we don’t know for sure how this man died. He might have been a criminal they put to death. Even if he’s a war casualty, one side might have the nobler cause. We can’t assume they’re all savages to be avoided.”

“Maybe, but I still wouldn’t want to mess with them. I say again, we should get back to camp. All those in favor?”

Phameas and almost everyone else in the party but Isceradin raised their hands, waving them about.

With a shake of his head, the Iberian muttered something in his native language. “Fair enough if that’s how you all vote. But we could’ve pressed on to find fresh water, at least.”

As the party hiked over the tracks their sandals had already left in the damp and spongy earth, the forest interior grew darker, and not only because the sunbeams arrowing through the canopy had dimmed with time’s passage. If the tribes here were anything like the Gauls, or even those Iberians who prowled the peninsula beyond the areas under Carthaginian influence, they would be worse than the most rabid wolves. Even the more civilized nations could be treacherous, the Romans being the exemplar par excellence of that. It was an experience Phameas had hoped to have left behind in the past.

A whistling cry pierced the calm within the forest. All the Carthaginians halted. Phameas’s heart pounded like a stampede of feral horses across the grasslands of Numidia back in Africa, the sweat on his brow chillier than a breeze among the Alps. Ahead of him, leaves in the undergrowth rustled, with shadows flashing between the trees and bushes.

From the cover of the brush emerged men in deerskin loincloths and trousers. Their muscular, stocky bodies were of a bronze hue, perhaps a little darker than Isceradin, the Iberian, but much less so than the Carthaginians proper, with their faces and limbs striped with tattooed black lines. Their straight black hair was shorn into crests with feathers attached to them, and many had pieces of bone or ivory piercing their noses and ears. Gripping spears tipped with flint points, these strange men stared at the Carthaginian party with narrowed eyes.

Phameas held his empty hands up in a gesture of surrender. “We won’t hurt you, see? Please, I beg you, have mercy on us…”

The local warriors blinked at one another, whispering in a language Phameas had never heard in his life.

“I doubt they know a word of Carthaginian,” Isceradin said.

“Fair enough,” Phameas said.

He patted himself on his breastplate of toughened linen while looking into the eyes of the native man nearest him. “Phameas. My name is Phameas.”

The warrior squinted at him. “Fah-me-us?”

“Yes, Phameas!” Phameas tapped his correspondent on the shoulder. “And you?”

“Huh, ‘and you’?” The native had less luck pronouncing the Carthaginian right.

Isceradin shook his head. “He wouldn’t know what ‘and you’ means yet, Phameas.”

The foremost of the native troop, a tall man with a necklace of bear claws and teeth, pointed his finger up with a nod, as if he had figured something out. He then tapped his own breast. “Sukamek.”

“Sue-ka-meck,” Isceradin repeated while pointing to the man.

The one who called himself Sukamek nodded with a smile, and then pointed back to the Iberian.

Isceradin replied with his own name and hand to his breastplate. He then drew an invisible circle that, from their point of view, would include the whole Carthaginian troop. “Carthaginians.”

“Carthaginians,” Sukamek repeated. He then drew a similar circle around his own companions. “Inu’naabe.”

“In-new-knob-bay?” Phameas recited.

The other Inu’naabe men snickered among themselves, but Sukamek gave Phameas an affirming nod while touching his shoulder. “Phameas.”

It warmed Phameas inside to see that the native had gotten his name right. Assuming he understood it to be a name, of course. Regardless, Phameas showed his gratitude by touching Sukamek in turn while saying his name the best he could. This time, not one of the Inu’naabe even so much as sneered or tittered.

These strange locals, as primitive as their attire and weaponry may have appeared, didn’t seem like such a bad lot after all. There were civilized men out there who could be far less welcoming than them.

Sukamek turned to face the forest behind his band and waved his hand toward it, a clear signal requesting that they follow him.

“I think he’s inviting us to his village, or wherever they live,” Isceradin said. “It can’t hurt to pay them a quick visit before sundown.”

“If you say so,” Phameas said. “They do seem the hospitable sort.”

Even so, he had not forgotten the spear they had found near the rotting skeleton. Or how, with its flint point, it so closely resembled the spears the Inu’naabe warriors carried.

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The Slave Prince of Zimbabwe – Excerpts

Book cover for The Slave Prince of Zimbabwe, designed by the author himself

Chapter One

Southern Africa, 1215 AD

Even as a slim crescent in the black heavens, the moon bestowed enough light upon the ramparts to give their layers of granite blocks a silver luster. These walls rose so high that not even the tallest giraffes of this far southern country could crane their necks up to look over them… or so Drazhan Khazanov imagined. Not that the man from the distant land known as Ruthenia had never seen grand architecture in his life, but after riding across wild savanna and hills for the past several days, he had not expected to discover such a colossal castle in this remote hinterland.

With defenses like that to scale, his mission would present more of a challenge than expected. Such would be the price of his freedom.

It was not like Drazhan had arrived unprepared. After tethering his donkey to an aloe tree, the Ruthenian removed a coil of rope from his packsaddle and stole up to the foot of the wall on the toes of his boots. He turned his head sideways twice to check if there were any glowing balls of guards’ torchlight drifting over the top.

Nothing. Drazhan unwound the rope, whirled one end above his head as high as he could, and flung it over the wall’s upper edge until he heard the faint clink of the attached grappling hook. He tugged to ensure it had found a secure purchase and then heaved himself up the rampart’s height, sprinting over its surface to propel himself faster.

Although the mighty fortification was almost twenty feet wide where Drazhan had scaled it, it did not have the parapets or crenellations that many others across the known world sported to shield guards or archers. Instead, his hook had caught onto one of several soapstone posts sticking up from the wall, those posts carved in the form of seated eagles, the heraldic birds of the Kingdom of Zimbabwe. Studying the wall again, the Ruthenian could not find any stairs or ladders connecting the top of the wall to the ground. Had the Zimbabwean palace’s architects ever intended for men to mount these defenses? Drazhan didn’t think so.

Still, it was a view that commanded awe, even at night. Within the space enclosed by the great ramparts sat several neighborhoods of thatch-roofed rondavels, many of which were separated from one another with shorter inner walls, built of the same stone as the outer wall.

Overlooking this entire complex to the southeast was a stout, knob-topped tower — the royal granary, as Drazhan recalled being informed. If he squinted through the darkness to the northwest, looking beyond the whole palatial enclosure, he could tease out the moonlit contours of an even vaster city of huts sprawling to the horizon, the smog left behind by evening cooking fires still floating over it.

Or, he wondered, did that burning smell have something to do with the orange firelight flickering through the open entryway within the outer wall further north of him?

The Ruthenian glided along the base of the wall until he was directly right above the entrance. Two men stood outside next to torches on posts, each man armed with an iron spear and a cowhide shield. Drazhan looked at the situation and reasoned he could possibly carry on his mission while leaving them alone. Could he work without them looking?

It would be safer to draw them away from the picture altogether, he concluded.

He unslung his bow and shot an arrow far into the distant blackness. While it flew, he hid from the men’s sight, lying flat down on the top of the wall. Then the guards, upon hearing the impact, hurried off to investigate where his arrow had hit. Perfect.

Drazhan hopped into a mopane tree at the rampart’s inner flank and climbed down into the enclosure’s dusty floor, careful not to let the leaves and branches scratch him too loudly. Having memorized the layout of the royal complex from his earlier scans, he tiptoed through a labyrinth of huts and inner walls, hovering his right hand above his sheathed saber’s hilt just in case things went sour. He squeezed himself through a gap in one of the interior walls — and suddenly found himself standing before the largest hut in the area, which sat alone within its own subdivision.

If Zimbabwean rulers were like those of every other kingdom in the world, this had to be their Mambokadzi’s bedchamber.

The Ruthenian stepped into the hut through an arched doorway framed with elephant tusks. Narrow rectangular apertures in the building’s earthen sides drew in enough moonlight to reveal a broad bed atop a gold-ringed ebony frame in the middle of the room. The lion-skin bedspread, fringed with leopard hide, rose and fell with gentle regularity over a form with curves like an hourglass.

Drazhan peeled off both the bedspread and cotton sheets for a better view at his mission’s target. He saw her voluptuous figure, dark and sleek as onyx, and unclothed except for the copper, ivory, and diamond-studded gold jewelry looped around her limbs, neck, and brow. Even the short, frizzy coils of her hair sparkled like the stars in the sky above. Beneath each of her eyes ran a short line of dot-shaped scarifications, which accentuated her beauty in Drazhan’s eyes, even if other Ruthenians would have considered it an ugly heathen custom. Small wonder his master wanted this woman in his harem!

Then Drazhan noticed something else, clutched between her fingers as she slept. A glinting dagger sporting three elongated blades, like a forked stiletto.

He would have to disarm her first. Holding his breath, he began by pinching the dagger’s hilt and sliding it out of her hands. Her grip tightened. Once it relaxed again, he inserted his fingertips under hers and pulled them open without any sudden jerks, releasing the weapon at last. She didn’t stir. He smirked with triumph and reached to touch the stiletto himself.

Something growled behind him. A pair of yellow dots blazed like twin flames in the shadows beside the bed, with bared fangs beneath them glistening wet with drool. The Ruthenian stepped back to the doorway and tore out his saber, brandishing it as a warning threat. Stepping into the light, the black leopard responded with a cough-like roar, launching hot spittle onto his face and flinging its front paw at him. Its claws sliced through the fabric of his tunic to cut the skin of his chest.

Drazhan staggered backward against a dresser as the feline assailant sprang for another attack. He thrust his fist into its nose. With a high-pitched yowl, the cat rolled on the floor away from him before leaping back onto its paws. Drazhan charged with his saber drawn.

Something flashed before his eyes and pried it out of his hands.

The Mambokadzi had caught the Ruthenian’s saber between the blades of her stiletto. With one flick of her wrist, she threw the sword past her bed.

The leopard lowered itself to the ground, tail lashing, glaring at Drazhan. When the woman patted its head, the beast relaxed into a resting posture like an obedient housecat.

“Restrain yourself now, Chatunga,” the Mambokadzi said. “You may eat later. First, I must know who our inopportune visitor is.”

She pointed her dagger at the Ruthenian, the middle of its three blades digging into his throat. “You heard me. Who are you and who sent you?”

He grinned with the desperation of a boy caught in misbehavior. “Call me Drazhan of Ruthenia. And it was the Sultan of Kilwa who sent me to, uh…”

The Mambokadzi’s facial muscles crinkled with disgust. “Oh, him? I know what that Swahili jackal wants. I even figured he’d go to any lengths to get it, after all the offers I’ve turned down from him. Though I’d have never expected him to send a pale European like you…”

“If you must know, Your Highness, I didn’t come all the way to these parts by choice. I was…brought here, against my will, through many changing hands. The Sultan promised that if I could deliver you to him, he’d give me back the freedom I’ve been robbed of for so long.”

Drazhan pulled up one of his sleeves to expose a dark red welt on his shoulder, one of many his body had collected ever since those Cuman raiders from the steppes had dragged him away from his village as a youth.

The Mambokadzi’s features softened, a twinkle of sympathy in her eyes. She withdrew her stiletto. “You poor soul. Nobody on Mwari Almighty’s earth should have to endure such abuse at the hands of men.”

“So, would you know of another way I could earn my freedom back?” Drazhan asked. “It isn’t like I can return to Kilwa and buy it from him without you. To a man like him, O Mambokadzi, you would be the ultimate trophy—as would your kingdom once you are joined.”

“Ugh, if only you could just put that greedy little lecher out of his misery. After all, a dead man can’t own a living one, can he?”

“But then one of his family would take his place as Sultan. And whomever they might be, they would never forgive me even if I were freed.”

“Oh, really? And how do you think my people would feel if you carried me off to your Sultan? Do you believe that they would let their Mambokadzi languish in a harem as his ‘trophy’ while he pilfers our wealth? And would you want them all to suffer just so you can be free?”

Drazhan opened his mouth, but no words could come out. No kingdom or people could be worth his freedom as one man. Nor should any woman, queen or not, be forced into a man’s possession. If so, he would be trading his own freedom for hers. Yet taking his master’s life didn’t seem like a better solution, especially if it led to that man’s grieving family seeking vengeance against his slayer.

The Mambokadzi’s full lips stretched into a sly smile. “If you can’t think of an answer to your dilemma, I might have one. You wouldn’t mind staying here a little longer, would you, Drazhan?”

He furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”

“Let’s just say that I may know of a way to, ahem, ‘coax’ your Sultan into freeing you. It might not please him at first, and he might even fight it at first. But while he and I are negotiating our terms, you and I can get to know each other better. How does that sound, handsome one?”

She extended an arm to stroke the yellow hair flowing down from Drazhan’s fur-capped head, her eyelashes fluttering. Warmth swelled both in his cheeks and crotch. He chuckled. “If you say so, O Mambokadzi of Zimbabwe.”

“Call me Ruvarashe, or Ruva for short. Oh, and this would be my little cub, Chatunga. I’m sure you two will get along… won’t you?”

She gave her leopard an affectionate rub on its head, but the big cat’s luminous eyes were still drawn arrows aimed at their Ruthenian guest. He could swear he had heard the beast hiss through its fangs.

Drazhan shrugged. “I’m sure he and I will be able to cope with one another, eventually.”

“I must say, though, you could stand to sharpen your fighting skills while you’re staying with me,” Ruva said. “A big, strong warrior like you shouldn’t be so easy to disarm.”

“C’mon, you only caught me off guard. I could cleave any man’s skull past the chin if I wanted to, mark my words!”

Ruva cocked an eyebrow. “Sure, you could. We’ll see how you fare in practice against my soldiers over the coming weeks.”

Chapter Two

Many mtepe plied the azure waters east of Kilwa’s coast, driven by the breezes that pushed woven palm-frond sails. The shark-finned junks moored to the harbor within view of the Sultan’s palace dwarfed these native boats like whales amongst a vast school of herring. Shimmering steel rivers of armored soldiers poured from the wooden leviathans’ decks down wide gangplanks, flooding onto the piers and following the strutting, silk-robed officials.

Even when watching this arrival from the security of his balcony, in the balmy morning air, Sultan Hussein ibn Suleiman shivered with anger and dread like it was a far northern winter. They had promised to be more patient with him, to give him one more chance. They had no business coming here so soon, before he was ready. Nonetheless, he could not refuse them. He may have been the son of one of the greatest conquering Sultans in Swahili history, but they had the mightiest empire in the known world. It was no contest. 

If the Sultan had anyone to blame for the terrible situation in which he found himself, it was his damned Ruthenian bodyguard. What was taking that pale-skinned slave so long? He should have come back with the Mambokadzi at least half a month ago.

There was no more time to waste fretting. The Sultan’s visitors would be banging on his door any moment. Already, he could hear the chinking of their henchmen’s lamellar armor as they advanced along the palm-lined shore, parallel to the palace’s southeastern wall.

One of his younger servants dashed out onto the balcony with a papyrus scroll. “It’s from the Mambokadzi of Zimbabwe, Your Majesty.”

Underneath his umber skin, the blood drained from the Sultan’s face, chilling the air around him even more. “Can it wait? I have important business to attend to.”

After dismissing the boy, he hurried through the arched coral-stone hallways to the royal kitchen. “Fix up the most lavish breakfast you can! You have two hours!” he barked.   While his cooks went to work, the other servants laid down a long carpet on one side of the audience courtyard for the dishes to be placed. The Sultan took his seat at one end. Sweat streamed down his brow as his crossed legs continued to tremble.

Before long, servers were scurrying out with platters of fruit, fish, and fried mandazi pastries as his guests strode into the sunlight with their armed retinue. Foremost among them was a tall, clean-shaven man, the embroidered image of a gold-scaled, serpentine monster twisting over his blood-red hanfu. A proud sneer crossed his light yellow-brown face, as if sculpted that way by Allah Himself.

The Sultan spread his arms apart and bowed his head. “Salam aleikum to you, Minister Wong Dongxiang. You arrived on time for breakfast.”

He raised a porcelain cup for a serving girl, who began to pour a steaming hot cup of coveted Ethiopian coffee. In her haste, she sent half the scalding liquid cascading onto his knee. He winced and groaned, his anger quickly triggered amidst the other tension gripping him, but he compelled himself not to chastise her in front of the imperial minister.

Wong Dongxiang looked at the growing spread of food, a sneer crossing his face. “It appears you were quick to prepare this ‘feast’.”

“In my defense, you did return sooner than I anticipated,” the Sultan said. “I daresay you ambushed me before I was ready.”

“Before you were ready?” Wong folded his arms and began chuckling. “I take it you still haven’t had luck courting that Mambokadzi of Zimbabwe.”

“No, I am afraid she still hasn’t been receptive to my offers. Therefore, I’ve had to send one of my slaves to go fetch her for me. Normally I wouldn’t resort to such methods, mind you, but as you know, I am a desperate man.”

“Which explains all your delays, O Sultan of Kilwa. I speak for both myself and my Emperor when I say we’re on the sharpest edge of our patience with you. If one more year goes by without the repayment we’re owed, your little Sultanate will be blasted into dust.”

The Sultan’s messenger barged in again, still with the scroll in his hand. “Since you mentioned the Mambokadzi, that brings me to what she sent us today,” he said, looking up from the scroll. “She says she has Drazhan the Ruthenian captive, Your Majesty.”

The drinking cup plummeted from the Sultan’s hand, shattering into pieces while spilling coffee onto the rug. “Allah, damn it all!” he cried. “No wonder he hasn’t come back.”

“She says she’ll return your slave to you only if you surrender your pursuit of her once and for all,” the messenger said.

Wong Dongxiang snickered behind his thin lips. “Sounds like a scenario you should have accounted for. So much for your hopes of paying out from her treasury! Where will you find the spare coin for us now, O Sultan?”

Ever since he was a boy, the future Sultan, Hussein, had dreamed of and worked toward continuing his father Suleiman’s legacy as a conquering uniter of Swahili cities. Instead, so far, he had squandered his adulthood fighting his brothers over the throne. They were like hyenas over a carcass, to say nothing of how their squabbling had drained the Sultanate’s coffers. Had the Chinese not lent him coin and other aid, Hussein would have never secured his place as the next Sultan. Now he realized that by making those deals, he had taken himself—and his people—out of one series of relatively petty wars into the looming shadow of a far greater and permanent danger … annihilation. His efforts to bring the wealth of Zimbabwe under his power, with its beautiful young matriarch by his side, had backfired.

He should have predicted as much. If he could not trust any of his slaves or servants to take the Mambokadzi for him, the Sultan would have to do it himself. Now he knew who could help him best.

“All may not be lost, O Minister,” he said. “I see you’ve brought quite a formidable force with you, equipped with the deadliest weapons in the world. Or so it seems to me.”

“That is a fair assessment,” Wong said with a forced grin.

“Suppose you and I were to march on Zimbabwe together,” the Sultan said. “All its wealth will become yours as my repayment to you, and the Mambokadzi will be mine at last. What do you say?”

Wong Dongxiang pressed his fingertips together, his smile spreading even wider. “Assuming all goes according to your plan, I don’t see why that would be a poor investment on our part. You have a deal.”

The Sultan looked up to the heavens, with the sun scintillating near its zenith. “Then may Allah bless us both on our campaign.”

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Excerpted First Chapter from “Priestess of the Lost Colony”

1600 BC, in an alternate timeline

Itaweret moved her final pawn off the last square on the senet board. She straightened on her stool and crossed her arms with a triumphant smirk, victory assured in the game of passing.

“By all the gods, not again!” Bek slammed his hands on the ebony table, which knocked his two remaining pawns off the gameboard. “There must be some mistake!”

Itaweret laughed. “What mistake? That you’ve been losing the past few times? I keep telling you, Brother, you take these games much too seriously. You act as if the fate of all Per-Pehu depended on it.”

Bek narrowed his eyes as his lips curled into a snarl. “I might not be wrong, then. If I am to govern this colony, I must hone my strategic skills. How can I do that when I keep losing to a—a priestess?”

Itaweret didn’t take one grain of offense. If anything, his righteous anger amused her even more. “Remember what Father says. You do not need to succeed to learn.”

Bek opened his mouth for another retort but stopped, stood from his stool beside the table, and took a deep breath. His mahogany-skinned brow sparkled with sweat from the afternoon sunlight that descended upon the back courtyard. He stormed across the courtyard to an alabaster bench beneath one of the olive trees and plopped down to sulk in its shade.

As entertaining as her brother’s tantrums were at the end of every senet game, any pleasure Itaweret felt evaporated when she saw him wipe a tear off his cheek. Not since they were children had she seen Bek show such emotion unless he thought nobody was looking.

Continue reading “Excerpted First Chapter from “Priestess of the Lost Colony””
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Excerpt from “Priestess of the Lost Colony”

There were no torches burning inside the tunnel beneath the temple of Mut. Only the brazier Bek carried behind her drove back the blackness, and it was dimming with every passing second. Itaweret occasionally paused to search the floor for branches that she could toss into the brazier but found nothing but cold and damp stone.    

Finally, they reached a rectangular outline of light at the tunnel’s end. By the mercy of fate, the pair had not stumbled into any booby-traps, nor run into any dead ends branching off from the main passage. While dark, the journey was not as perilous as Itaweret had feared…

Hopefully, it would stay that way.

“How do you know this doesn’t lead to a trap?” Bek asked.

“Think about it. Why would Mut lead us into a trap? Don’t you trust her enough, brother?”

“Assuming that was Mut speaking to us. What if it was that Achaean demon she talked about, that Athena?”

Itaweret fought hard within herself to ignore him, and the possibility he raised. It was a valid point, if she were honest with herself, but it seemed unlikely that an Achaean deity like Athena could penetrate the sanctum of Mut. At least she hoped so. And hope was all they had left.

Itaweret walked up to the rectangle of light and pressed her shoulder against the surface, feeling the same cool stone texture as the tunnel’s walls. She pushed all her strength onto the door, groaning from exertion and the exhausting day, until it fell forward with a hard thud and crumbled outside.

A flood of daylight blinded her. Once her eyes readjusted from the subterranean darkness, she found herself on the summit of a grassy hill that sloped into a gravelly beach beside the sea. The setting sun gilded the crests of the waves, but the colors of the sky graded ominously, from dark red to black. Itaweret wrinkled her nose from the smell of smoke and burnt flesh.

Behind the hill, the city in which she had lived her entire life bloomed into a colossal inferno of flame. The fires that roared on rooftops, together with thick black rivers of smoke, obscured any sight of the carnage that, she realized, must have clogged and already begun to rot over the streets. Still, she could make out a stream of people being herded out through the city gate, prodded along by Mycenaeans in their bronze suits.

They were her fellow citizens of Per-Pehu. Her people, friends and neighbors, reduced to human livestock in one evening.

“How dare they!” Bek shook his fist while watching what she watched, quaking with rage. “We’ve got to do something!”

“We will, brother. We wouldn’t be out here if we weren’t going to do something about it. But we cannot fight now. Come on!”

She took his hand. They descended the hill to a dirt path that meandered northeastward. The cover of the olive and cypress trees alongside it, together with shadows that grew darker with each passing minute, would conceal them from any prowling Mycenaeans.

At least she hoped so.

Less than two hours later, the scarlet heavens faded into blackness almost as pure as that within the tunnel. Now their only light was the half-moon and dusting of tiny stars around it, giving off a faint white glow reflected upon the vegetation and stones. Itaweret huddled close to Bek as they hiked up the path through the foothills, pausing only to pick up sticks to feed the fire in the brazier. If there was one thing to praise the wilderness for, it was an abundance of cheap firewood.

They ascended higher into the hills, climbing until the open, scrubby landscape of the low plains gave way to oak and pine forests that girdled the mountains. They climbed over fallen logs and boulders strewn about with increasing density. If walking uphill had not already worn away at the strength in their legs, maneuvering around these obstacles in the terrain taxed their muscles to aching even more.

Underneath the soft fragrance of the pines, Itaweret’s nostrils flared, capturing another odor, more rancid and unpleasant. She traced the scent to the gleaming, red-spattered bones of a lamb, flies buzzing around the few scraps of meat that clung to it. She had seen cattle and goats sacrificed to the gods in the temple complex at Per-Pehu, but never witnessed their gory remains in a state like this. The sight almost shoved her last meal from her stomach into her throat.

“How could this have died?” she asked.

Bek crouched over the bones and ran his finger over one of five parallel scars raked across the ribcage. He pointed to a weathered impression in the nearby earth, broader than a human hand, with claw marks sticking out before each of its five toes.

“I would have guessed a lion, but cats in general don’t leave prints like this,” Bek said. “Normally they retract their claws, so they wouldn’t show like they do here.”

“Could it be a dog?” Itaweret asked. “Or a jackal? Or one of those gray monsters the Achaeans call wolves?”

Bek shook his head. “Much, much too big for any of those. Truth be told, I have no idea. It must be a kind of monster we’ve never seen in our lives.”

Back home, everyone inside Per-Pehu’s walls had heard travelers’ stories of the beasts that roamed the wilds beyond the colony. Some spoke of cannibalistic men with singular eyes or the heads of bulls, giant swamp-dwelling serpents, or fire-breathing creatures that were part goat, part lion, and part snake. Itaweret had always considered the descriptions too ridiculous to be real. More frightening were the accounts of hulking beasts with dog-like faces and claws like knives, giant cats with dagger-long fangs, and ill-tempered elephants covered in shaggy hair. Those stories sounded almost truthful.

Itaweret wrung her hands around Mut’s scepter, shivering with a dread colder than the nocturnal air itself. “Do you know whether it could be nearby?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Bek said. “The tracks are a little worn. It could have left here hours or even a day ago.”

Two glowing specks of yellow blinked behind a nearby patch of bushes. Leaves rustled and branches snapped as the specks drifted towards them. The furry outline of a thick, stocky body gleamed from the brazier’s firelight. The creature’s snout was long like a dog’s, but its ears were smaller and more rounded. As it panted and grunted, it exuded the same stink of decayed flesh as the sheep carcass.

Itaweret took a step back from the lumbering animal. “What do they call things like that?”

“A bear, I believe,” Bek whispered. “Stand your ground. That could scare him off.”

Itaweret forced herself to stay put and waved the scepter of Mut like a warrior’s staff as Bek shook the brazier back and forth at the beast. Rearing ten feet into the air on its hind feet, the bear curled its lips back, exposing pointed canines. It uncorked a menacing roar while brandishing clawed forepaws.

With a single swat, the bear knocked Itaweret’s scepter out of her hands. She jumped to grab it, but the bear seized the scepter in its mouth and tossed it into the darkness. It swiped at her bosom, raking through her linen cloth and skin with its claws. Sudden pain swept through her chest as she collapsed to the ground.

Bek thrust his brazier again, the heated ash landing on the bear’s backside. Now aggravated, the the bear turned away from Itaweret, roared, and charged him. The bear’s attack on Bek gave her enough time to crawl over and retrieve her scepter. Just as the bear was about to punch the brazier out of Bek’s grasp, she chucked the scepter into its shoulder.

Her blow distracted the beast for another second. Then it swung around and barreled towards her again. She had no another weapon to beat it aside.

Another roar followed.

All the children of Kemet could recognize that deep feline roar. Along with it appeared a pair of yellow eyes, set in a bright tawny form. The feline sprang from the blackness and landed on the bear. The two creatures rolled in the dirt in a chaotic melee of biting and slashing.

The battle ended with the bear’s growling breaking up into gagging, as if it were being choked. It fell limp, with a viscous river of blood gushing from its neck and more spilling from the cuts that had been slashed all over its body. The bear’s slayer stood over it and roared with a savage exultation.

Itaweret and Bek looked upon the largest lion they had ever seen, one with a thick dark mane and faint leopard-like spots on its flanks. She had heard stories of giant spotted lions that once roamed the countries north of the Great Green Sea, but according to those same stories, they had all died out centuries ago. Was this the very last of that breed, or did it have a whole pride behind it? If the latter, would they be seeking dinner too?

Itaweret could only hope the bear’s big and meaty carcass would distract them from she and Bek.

Then, a voice, a proud voice: “That’s a good boy, Xiphos!”

A young Achaean man in a sleeveless wool tunic walked toward them, carrying a wooden shepherd’s staff. He stroked the big cat’s mane as if it were a tame dog while it gorged itself on the dead bear. Much to Itaweret’s surprise, the lion tolerated the boy’s touch, rather than fending him off like any truly wild animal.

Itaweret brushed droplets of blood off her clothing and jewelry. “Xiphos? Is he your pet or something?”

“My father brought him in when he was a cub,” the Achaean youth said. “No need to fear him, my lady. He’s as gentle as a puppy unless you provoke him. Are you folks all right? It’s not every day we have black people come to these parts.”

“Why do you call us ‘black’ people?” Bek asked. “Our people are various shades of brown, some of us darker than others. If we are ‘black’, would that make you, what, ‘white’?”

The Achaean chuckled. “No use arguing over what we call each other. Trust me, I’ve heard far nastier names for your kind of people. Name’s Philos. And you two?”

Itaweret did not want to know those “nastier” names. “I am Itaweret, High Priestess of Mut from Per-Pehu. And this is my brother Bek, son of the Great Chief Mahu.”

“Aye, so you’re from the colony over the hills.” Philos looked up and down Itaweret’s body, his eyes following her contours in much the same gazing way as Scylax of Mycenae. “And, by Aphrodite, are you fine to look at, scratches and all! Nice curves, especially.”

Itaweret shook her head and grumbled. Achaean or Kemetian, white or black, men were all the same. Though she had to admit, the muscular young Achaean, with his flowing long black hair, wasn’t a wholly unattractive specimen.

“Anyway, either of you wouldn’t have seen a little ewe around these parts, would you?” Philos asked.

“We saw a sheep’s skeleton,” Bek replied. “We think the bear ate it sometime back.”

“Hades be damned, then! Xiphos and I have been looking for her the past couple of days. At least she was only one ewe. So, what are you two Kemetians doing out here?”

“In case you haven’t heard, Per-Pehu has been brutally sacked by King Scylax of Mycenae,” Itaweret said. “Our goddess Mut has sent us a quest northeast, one that will lead to Scylax’s defeat. We hope it does, anyway. She told us that we would find our answer in the first village over the mountains.”

Philos scratched his hair. “By Zeus, that’s my village! I don’t know why we’d know how to beat the king of Mycenae, out of all people in the world. But, if your goddess says so, I ought to help you the best I can.”

“How far is your village, anyway?”

“A few more hills to the east. But we ought to rest here for the night. Xiphos doesn’t like being dragged away from his meals, and I think we’re all damned tired anyway.”

Bek yawned. “Yeah, tell me about it.”

Itaweret nodded. Almost every muscle burned from straining, even beyond her wounds from the bear’s attack. Her stomach groaned with hunger. Once the lion filled himself, she wouldn’t mind cooking leftovers of the bear over a fire lit by Bek’s brazier. Never had she eaten bear meat, but food was food in uncivilized places.

She looked up at the treeline and caught the flicker of little eyes. They weren’t the yellow eyes of a bear, lion or other predator, but silver-gray eyes…familiar eyes.

Itaweret blinked. The eyes were gone.

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The Sultan of Finback Isle – Opening Excerpt

Cover illustration for my e-novelette “The Sultan of Finback Isle”, showing our heroes Abdullah and Monique Kalua being encircled by a hungry Dimetrodon.

A new novelette available in ebook form on the Amazon Kindle store!

Having broken off from the other continents two hundred and sixty million years ago, the landmass known as Finback Isle has protected a unique ecosystem in the equatorial Pacific older than the dinosaurs themselves. Only a near-extinct nation of Polynesian settlers, together with the crew of Ferdinand Magellan in 1520, have ever set foot on the island within the annals of human history. 

And then Ibrahim Fawal, a native of Casablanca turned controversial new Chief of Police in Los Angeles, decided to establish his private winter getaway there.

Enter Abdullah and Monique Kalua, a daring husband-and-wife team of FBI agents sent to investigate the LAPD’s accelerated record of corruption and brutality under Fawal;s leadership, including the shooting of Monique’s own close relations. Their mission is to penetrate Fawal’s secret lair and bring him to justice.

Not only must they brave treacherous jungle littered with Polynesian ruins and teeming with beasts from the late Paleozoic Era, but they must also contend with the armed officers of one of the most vicious men ever to head the police of Los Angeles…the Sultan of Finback Isle!

Continue reading “The Sultan of Finback Isle – Opening Excerpt”