“Ahh, A-zu,” Ummi whispered, a glitter in her eye. “The war you were trying to avoid is upon us already. Higal must have beaten us here.”

BEDLAM WAS WAITING for us in the dusty Libbu. Carts were overturned. Booths ripped to shreds, people screaming and sprinting in all directions. Assata climbed to the top of the Libbu wall, flanked by the heads of her dead husband, dead son, and all the other traitors to Uruku, and raised her fist up high with a cry that pierced the din.

The tradesman we’d hired dropped the Koru’s ropes and fled back toward Laraak.

The warrior women who were on Higal’s side, arrayed in their copper tunics and scorpion helmets, battled like lionesses on the hunt, swinging battle-axes and maces into the skulls of the guardsmen who were brave enough to challenge them. One warrior screamed, streaks of dirt on her face as she sliced through the abdomen of a guardsman. His mouth fell open in surprise as he caught his own guts in his hands.

Near the left, Nasu, his face spattered with blood, his muscles straining as he swung his sicklesword, fought the guardsmen with whom he’d once been brothers.

I screamed, my hands over my ears, tears pricking my eyes. Dagan unsheathed his daggers.

“We must proceed, A-zu!” Ummi cried. “The battle has already begun. There is nothing left to do but help my sisters in war.”

She cut herself out of her bridal tunic, and her armor glimmered as she plunged into the fray. Humusi and the other Koru shed their own disguises like snakeskin and followed closely behind, weapons drawn.

Dagan pushed me toward the entrance to the Libbu. “Get back to Laraak! Now!” he commanded, his whole body radiating with focused intensity.

Dagan’s brothers Shep and Marduk, who must’ve gotten word of the battle, yelled as they parried through the clangs and curses, darting toward the rear of the Palace near the kitchens. Shep, baring his incisors like a dog, carried a sicklesword stolen from some guardsman, but Marduk carried only a mattock from the field on his bullish back.

“Dagan! What are they doing here! Where—”

“Go!” Dagan yelled, terrified, into my face. “I need to get them!”

I flung myself once around his neck, kissed him, and sprinted away, dodging screaming, starving people running for their own lives.

The Boatman was chasing us, his cavernous mouth open and ready to swallow us whole.

But I didn’t run for Laraak. I ran for the corner of the Libbu near the well in a thicket of trees. I wouldn’t abandon Dagan. Even if I had to watch him die. Even if I was forced to my knees and killed myself, I would not leave him behind.

Scrambling into the prickly weeds beneath the sycamores, I dropped onto my belly. My heart thrummed in my chest. My hands, underarms, forehead, and back were slick with sweat. I touched the healing satchel at my waist underneath the thick trader’s cloak and covered my ears against the screams of war. Cursing. Shrieks of agony and rage from the Manzazu warriors and guardsmen who were viciously fighting right in front of me in the Libbu.