The seas tossed, higher and higher. Angry waves crashed upon the walls of Alexandria, and strange beasts were washed up from the depths.

Though it was the Romans who enraged her, the violence of such a creature would not be confined to her enemies. Still, Usem was not afraid. His people were warriors by nature. And there were things to be gained in this fight. More than gold, though this was the usual form of payment for a Psylli’s services. No. This fight was a matter of life and death, and Usem sought to use this to his advantage. The Romans were desperate. He would drive a harder bargain. If they wished to employ a Psylli to battle with an immortal, it would cost them more than they were accustomed to paying.

Usem, as it happened, had a price in mind.

He looked about him, at the smooth desert, at his camels, at his home. His children, three daughters and three sons, huddled in the tent, and their grandmother stretched her arms to encompass them.

Usem threw the leopard skin over his shoulder as the soldiers rode up to his camp. It represented the starry night sky, and his possession of such a thing would show his power to those who sought to use it.

“I will ride with you against your enemy,” he told their leader, his words precise.

“You have no choice,” said the centurion, looming over him. The fact that the legionaries were mounted meant that speed was required. Otherwise, it would have been a march. “It is the will of the emperor that you come.”

The Psylli laughed, a dry rattle of mirth that shook his ornaments and caused the sand around him to rise into a small tornado. The winds were his dear ones, and he called them to stand with him.

Out along the horizon, the sky grew black and whirling, the shapes of great and horned beasts forming in the dust. Their eyes flashed heat lightning as they began to move toward the interlopers.

The soldiers drew back from this spectacle, quaking and disbelieving, just as Usem intended them to be.

“There is always a choice,” said the Psylli, as he leapt atop the horse, kicking his bare heels into its sides. “I have made mine. We ride to war.”

4

The scream was repeated, high, desperate, desolate, and then there was a deep, rattling roar. Nicolaus ran onto the deck, where the sailors were surging about in panic, swearing.

“If the lions are loose,” one said, “I’m going up the mast.”

“They can climb,” said another. “Didn’t you see them draped over the trees? We’d be better off jumping into the water.”

They looked over the rail at the dark, finned shape still accompanying them. More had joined the first, and now the vessel was trailed by a shifting underwater cloud of predators. The captain, a stout, weatherworn man with a lifetime’s worth of steel-gray tattoos on his shoulders, looked down at the sharks, spat, drew his sword, and attempted to instill order.