That straightened the Akkadian, only to send him staggering backward, until he crashed into a table alongside the altar steps, crushing it under his considerable weight. Though his scimitar remained in hand, Mathayus was dazed, barely conscious, and ready for finishing off by the warlord....
But even as the fog began to lift in the barbarian's mind, he could see his opponent, not bearing down on him, rather staring up at the moon.
If Mathayus had not been dazed, he would have taken this opportunity to charge at the warlord, and slash him to ribbons; instead, groggily, he turned his own eyes to the moon, and wondered if he was delirious—the orb was ringed in silver, glowing all 'round. .. and the outline of a scorpion had become visible on its distant face.
As for Memnon, he knew he would have to put off killing the barbarian, for a few moments anyway; because a moment was upon him that must be seized, a juxtaposition of man and the heavens, a moment when reality and destiny became one: the time of the prophecy had arrived.
His swords no longer aflame, Memnon strode up the wide stone steps, pausing midway to call out to the sky, in a voice both grim and determined: "Great gods above—look down upon me!"
Mathayus began to push to his feet. Did this madman think he could command the gods?
The warlord on the altar steps still spoke to the sky, to the moon, but now his voice was hushed: "Make me one with you."
And Cassandra, her wits gathered, stood aghast as her prophecy seemed to be coming true. They were in the courtyard, just as she had envisioned it in the bandit's camp; and Memnon was on those altar steps, with Mathayus preparing to make an attack from the flank.
Frightened, she turned to one of several courtyard doors, trying to tap into her memory of the vision— an archer had emerged from a door onto this open area, but which door? She swung around, looking at another possibility, and another . .. any one of three doors....
Even now, she thought, that archer was pounding down a palace corridor, no doubt drawing an arrow on the run. But which corridor? What door?
Then, the door at the left held her gaze; no, she had not regained her mystical powers: she had merely spotted something growing up between stones, a flower struggling toward a sun that had long since set.
In her vision, the archer had stepped through a doorway, on the run, and crushed such a small, yellow flower.
And in moments, the sorceress knew, he would do it again.
A man on foot—a badly wounded one at that— meeting a horseman's lance with a sword was by all logic doomed to failure. And, as if proof of that wisdom, Takmet thrust his lance expertly and caught, with its hooked tip, the Nubian by his calf. Takmet jerked upward, taking Balthazar's leg out from under him; the bandit king's other foot went with it, and he went smashing backward into a stone wall, sliding down to sit awkwardly on the corridor floor.
On his backside now, bleeding, breathing hard, Balthazar was cornered, the smirking Takmet looming over him from his saddle.
As the prince's horse trotted almost casually up to him, Balthazar raised his hands in surrender.
Takmet's smirk disappeared and a smoldering rage turned into a blaze rivaling the one in the palace around them. "Force me to kneel before you? What gives you such gall, Nubian dog? What gives you the right to ask a prince to kneel before such rabble?'
And the furious Takmet drove the lance forward, aiming between those massive raised hands ...
... both of which caught the lance, and held it fast.
Takmet's eyes widened, his mouth dropped open.
Balthazar's eyes burned into whatever soul the wretch in the saddle still possessed. And he answered the prince's question: "What gives me the gall? ... About two hundred pounds' advantage, traitor."
And with a might few men could match, Balthazar yanked that lance, lifting Takmet off the saddle as if he were weightless, sending the slender prince flying...
... straight into a stone wall, where—as one might predict—he hit hard, like an insect into the helmet of a charging warrior. He slid down the stones, as if every bone in his body had been crushed into a puree, and puddled there, waiting for Balthazar.
It was not a long wait.
The Nubian, with renewed strength, strode over, hardly limping now. Somehow the stunned prince managed to draw his sword, but even he knew the fight was over. A big hand reached out and squeezed the smaller man's wrist and fingers popped open, and steel clattered impotently on the floor.
"Go ahead, Nubian," Takmet said, not defiant, just weary. "End it! Use your sword."
The king shook his head.
And raised a fist, no larger than the average child's head, casting a shadow that blotted out the face of the only son of the late King Pheron of Ur.
"This," Balthazar said, "is for your father."
Then that fist came smashing straight into Takmet's wide eyes, and the last sound the prince heard was the sickening crunch of his own face, collapsing.
In the courtyard, Mathayus had recovered—he was on his feet, scimitar in hand, moving toward the steps, ready to charge up that altar and finish the madman Memnon.
"Mathayus!"
At the sound of Cassandra's voice, the Akkadian paused, turned, and saw her standing with her palms upraised—a wraith in the moonlight—her expression solemn.
And just past her, behind her, he saw an archer burst through a palace doorway onto the courtyard, a sandaled foot crushing a flower, an arrow already notched in the warrior's bow.
Mathayus winced. In a flash, he knew: he knew what Cassandra's vision had been—of his death in this courtyard—and he knew what she now intended; like him, she wanted to change the future, even if it meant sacrificing herself, fashioning her own doomed destiny.
She sent love to him with her eyes, and then resignation covered her face, as she turned toward that archer, who was about to let fly.
Then the sorceress dove in front of that projectile, which already winged toward Mathayus, who had anticipated her move, diving himself, snatching her out of harm's way and into the shelter of his arms, and he spun toward the threat, offering his back to the archer's arrow.
The tip found purchase in his back, between his shoulder blades, and the shaft quivered there, satisfied. Mathayus received this offering without a cry of pain, though his shudder was something Cassandra, folded in his arms, felt as if the reaction were her body's own.
"No," she said, agonized at the fulfillment of her vision, her emotions shattering into tears, "no ..."
Scimitar tumbling from his hand, Mathayus dropped to the ground, his arms slipping from around her, even as the archer—intent on ensuring the death of his lord's foe—ran toward the fallen Akkadian.
And Memnon—on the altar steps, aloof from all this—surveyed the scene, pleased that his enemy had finally been vanquished, a man big enough not to begrudge the archer for denying his warlord the pleasure of killing the barbarian himself. Memnon could afford to be generous—after all, the path to godly ascension was clear before him.
The archer was almost upon Mathayus, the man brandishing a sword, ready to apply a finishing touch, should his arrow have only done the job halfway. Cassandra, boiling with fury, snatched up the Akkadian's scimitar, and—when the archer arrived, bending toward his victim—she swung the scimitar upward, thrusting it deep into the startled archer's chest.