Merdu gazed upon the gigantic city over Lake Taxan from the top of the Imperial Pyramid. His eagle eyes could even make out the small coral fish and predatory fish moving through the depths of the greenish waters, indifferent to the recent events of the world, swimming peacefully within their miniature ecosystem.

  Beyond that, the sun shone high above, an open and brilliant afternoon. One of the best times of the year in Anen, thought the feathered god. The relentless midyear rains he had watched for eons had finally passed, giving way to the season of abundant harvests throughout the country. But this year, things did not look promising. All those crops that hundreds of villagers had been preparing to reap were falling into the hands of the steppe raiders—implacable warriors and sons of the sinister shamanic gods of the north, long since extinguished.

  Those distant cousins of Merdu had succumbed to the inevitable passage of time, but their humble human successors had become an implacable force: massive hordes that fought in synchronized and terrifying fashion, whose scruples had vanished after centuries of petty wars among themselves over the scarce resources of their world, turning them into grotesquely oversized scavenging machines. In a fertile land like Anen, such beings could thrive as easily as a jaguar would among a docile herd of antelopes.

  For the umpteenth time that morning, the eagle god observed the first enemy hosts that had stationed themselves on the outskirts of the great city during the previous night. The Klurzite squadrons were composed entirely of cavalry—but not ordinary riders like those that had appeared in his country centuries earlier after the definitive incorporation of the horse into the military. These were hardened riders whose legs were deformed from spending their lives more on the back of a beast than on foot. Their garments were mainly wool and leather, but what they lacked in armor compared to the Aneite riders, they more than made up for in skill and mastery with bows and curved sabers.

  Merdu approached the balcony of the garden on the pyramid’s top floor and grasped the polished basalt railing to inspect with his own eyes the ever-growing number of enemies planted outside the city.

  The riders had already spent several hours galloping back and forth along the edges of Dalux, weighing its defenses with their voracious, narrow black eyes. Their clothing was the pinnacle of pragmatism: long, crossed tunics made of thick wool to withstand the freezing temperatures of their world, leather boots, and trousers of the same material to spend hours—sometimes days—on horseback without chafing.

  The colors of their garments were muted and sober, like their temperament and their way of life: brown, dark ochre, black, and faded blue.

  As he watched them, Merdu thought of the harsh customs of the deep steppe reflected in those riders, and imagined that such must have been the ways of the deities who had created them millennia ago. My dead uncles and cousins, he thought, trying to picture their appearance—something utterly impossible for a contemporary god.

  Gods died, yes—but before doing so, they tried to leave their mark upon that implacable and merciless world. In that regard, the ancient spirits of the steppe had done a fine job without a doubt, and the ultimate proof of it was that overwhelming force now standing at the very gates of his own city.

  My sister has also died, he thought, as his attention shifted to the citizens of Dalux. Despite the sudden presence of invaders, they continued with their routines, focused mainly on trade—crossing bridges from one district to another to carry their goods and obtain gold in return. Yet the nervousness over the imminent enemy siege was palpable, like a living entity materialized in the hurried movements of the Daluxites, as if they wished to acquire profits and goods as quickly as possible and then hide in their homes, never to emerge again. Even the elves—beings far more reflective and controlled than humans—seemed uneasy. Merdu had been observing them closely all morning as they walked the intricate streets. His hawk eyes allowed him to see them as if they were right before him. The beautiful beings from beyond the sea had become a widespread presence in nearly every city of Naxtul since the elven wars had ended centuries ago, especially due to their effectiveness at keeping orcs, goblins, and other saltwater vermin at bay. But even they knew that the steppe hordes were a case apart.

  Merdu had felt the absence of the goddess Tlaloc’s energy several hours earlier, shortly after Valtorius departed southward astride his colossal dragon.

  That cannot bode well, thought the bird god, who at that moment stood in the highest open garden of the Central Pyramid, transmuted into his humanoid form—a robust human warrior’s body over two meters tall, but with the proud head of an eagle and a fully feathered physique. From there he had a panoramic view of the largest city in Naxtul, as well as the immense structure surrounding the pyramid: a double castle encircled in turn by a fortified citadel bristling with guard towers.

  That enormous mass of stone blocks would be impenetrable to those steppe riders, who—while unbeatable in open terrain—stood no chance against a city wrapped in walls. The few siege weapons they possessed, such as short-range onagers and flimsy battering rams with rusted steel roofs and no iron tips, would be utterly useless against Dalux’s towers and outer wall. But with those human hyenas, one could never be sure. He thought again of his sister and her sudden absence of energy.

  Serpents are far too clever to die in vain. I know this because birds also come from reptiles. The god continued thinking as he watched the ever-growing enemy troops positioning themselves outside the city, arriving from the countryside in multiple directions. There are only two ways for a god to die: assassination by another deity, or a self-imposed sacrifice to give all one’s mana to another entity, usually one’s own egg or offspring. This was likely the case, since there are no dominant gods in the surrounding lands capable of extinguishing her prolonged life. But why would she do it? It is far too hasty a decision.

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  “Your presence here is very reassuring, Great Lord,” said the gentle voice of a woman behind him. It was Jontana, Valtorius’s niece, who had been left in charge of the city since the emperor himself had departed south upon Nahum, the flying beast. “In some way, it is a good omen amid the dire circumstances that beset us.”

  “We will overcome this, my child. Our city has resources enough to withstand several years of siege, and those riders cannot afford such a prolonged endeavor. Sooner or later we will receive aid from one of our allied nations.”

  Merdu wished he could trust his own words, but the truth was that he was not entirely sure. In recent years, Dalux had dominated its subsidiary states with an iron hand, breeding deep resentment. Even some of the Aneites themselves were no longer trustworthy, such as the traitors of Panxian, the city upon the rock. When the eagle god had still been young and knew little of the world—when Anen was nothing more than an uninhabitable jungle—he remembered how the enormous stone had fallen from the sky onto one of its coasts. He had never imagined that such a place could become a prosperous city of maritime merchants. Yet he had placed one of his core eggs there, and it had proven to be a wise decision… until a couple of centuries ago, when a group of mages far too clever for his liking had decided to cease worshiping him. Now they were not only declared rebels against their creator god, but were also conspiring against Dalux itself, defying the emperor’s designs. Merdu had recently sent a harpy attack to make an example of them, but it had been completely repelled—proof of the power those sorcerers had attained. When all this is over, and Valtorius returns, they will answer to me. I will destroy them—but for now I must deal with these accursed riders.

  “I hope so, Lord Merdu. But truth be told, I have lately observed very strange behavior in my uncle, the emperor. His eyes betray impulsive decisions most unlike him. It is as though age were clouding his senses, and his excessive ambition were overshadowing his reason. Either that—or he is being possessed by a wholly foreign entity.”

  “Let us trust that all will turn out well, my lady. After all, he now wields a weapon far more powerful than that of any of his enemies.”

  The beautiful woman sighed. She is so beautiful—more than any of my descendants, thought the god, proudly.

  “I do not know, my god. You yourself are a deity of war, and my knowledge is meager compared to yours… but a good warrior–strategist relies more on skill than on sophisticated tools when overcoming adversaries… and that is precisely what my uncle has ceased to do for several years now, intoxicated by his overwhelming power. He has squandered his mighty armies, and now I fear that the beast he has created so hastily may turn against him… and against us.”

  Merdu himself had thought as much. He was pleased that the woman now holding the reins of the city and the empire was clever enough to read what was happening—but that did not change the severity of their predicament.

  The invaders were at the very gates of his city, something that would never have occurred under the rule of Xemar, Valtorius’s father—a man austere and far-sighted, who had expanded the empire’s borders through wise resolutions. He then recalled that time moved in circles. Children raised in opulence often destroy what their austere parents forged from mud. It was a pattern he had observed generation after generation in his vast human farm, and one that was exceedingly difficult to intervene in.

  That beautiful lady before him, however, seemed the antithesis of that irrefutable pattern. Like most human women, she had matured with astonishing speed and controlled the Aneite senate with overwhelming ease, anticipating the moves of each of her political rivals—including the emperor himself—whom she knew how to persuade with useful reforms, circumventing his growing arrogance with feminine stratagems that were difficult to trace… Merdu shuddered at the thought that such a valuable woman might fall into the hands of the bloodthirsty leader of that accursed horde, whoever he might be. Yet as he watched the ever-growing number of riders blocking the roads to the city gates, he knew it was perfectly possible—perhaps even the most likely outcome—should the emperor fail to return on his dragon to annihilate that plague with fire. A predatory Klurtz leader could only sate his bloodlust—and that of his demonic army—before such beauty after a harsh negotiation.

  Before appearing before Jontana at the pyramid, the eagle god had flown across all of Anen in his royal eagle form for several days, inspecting the devastation the Klurzites had inflicted upon the land. Most intermediate and small settlements had become piles of rubble strewn with corpses that scavenging animals would have reduced to skeletons by now. The arable fields had been utterly plundered, and the invading riders seemed to be everywhere—though not numerous enough to occupy such a vast region.

  They are experts in mobility, and have divided themselves with great efficiency, the god had realized as he flew over the fertile valleys of his ravaged human farm with consternation. It is incredible that an animal as docile as the horse can be used for such merciless ends. Humans are uncontrollable beasts once they possess the right tools. The ancient steppe spirit gods must have been just as bloodthirsty in their time to have created such hordes. Not even orcs reached such levels of savagery.

  Despite the cunning with which the Klurzite squadrons had moved across Aneite territory, many of their troops had inexplicably ended up in overly remote places, such as the White Desert of Kaor or the coasts of the End of the Wind. But by now it was certain that they would soon be arriving at the very gates of Dalux, like many of their comrades. Someone clever enough to deceive the Klurzites had acted without his knowledge—but it had only delayed the inevitable.

  “For now we can only rely on our high walls and feign submission. I am certain that after loosing a few arrows, they themselves will ask to negotiate, which will give us time to wait for your uncle to arrive and scorch them with fire.”

  “If he returns, my lord father of the currents of the zephyr.”

  “I am sure he will. You need only trust, my child.”

  The beautiful woman sighed as she watched the afternoon sun begin to descend, precisely where the enemy troops were most numerous, her honey-colored eyes reflecting the colorful city at dusk.

  “So I do, my Great Lord—but in case he does not…”

  “In that case, prepare your most sophisticated diplomatic tools… and I mean all of them.”