Astarte's Wrath

Astarte’s Wrath

A Kythan Guardians Novel

Trisha Wolfe

Copyright © 2013 Trisha Wolfe

Cover Design: Stephanie Mooney

Ebook Design:
JW Manus

Preface

The truth behind the fiction.

This novel is a work of fiction, though many of the characters, geography, settings, scenes, and events are loosely based on a real people and a real time in history. Interlaced within the fictional text is the factual history as I’ve researched it through documentation, historians, and tomb hunters who have dedicated their lives to the pursuit of discovery of these great people and this great time. I’ve taken creative liberties with the history to write a fiction that can weave seamlessly into an imagined world within my stories.

Many of the dates of events were changed to better work for the story I wanted to tell, as well as names, actual events, measures of time, and era mechanics. The rich fodder of this era and its people is limitless. There is no end to what one can imagine within the stories they’ve left behind. I hold the highest regard, respect, and gratitude for the peoples of antiquity.

For a guide to the people, places and things in this story, see the
Appendix.

Trisha Wolfe.

For every joy there is a price to be paid.

–Proverb from the Outside Temple of Luxor

Chapter One

W
henever the sky bleeds,
covering the once-blue pallet with crimson, I know the Narcolym Guardians are waging a battle.

The bright ball of fire burns through billowy puffs of white, staining them and the earth in hues of red-orange and amber. Ash floats on a non-existent breeze. It rains down from the heavens; scatters across the limestone and sand.

Shuttering my window, I unloose the hemp thread, and a sheer curtain veils the sand-covered horizon from my vision. My fingers trail the cream fabric, their tips tracing the darkening clouds against the light material. My other hand curls into a fist by my thigh, dousing the swirling vortex rising up at the charge in the air.

“Star . . .?”

Damn
, I curse inwardly, but pinch my lips closed. I know why the general’s been sent to my apartment, but I inquire anyway out of respect. “Yes, General Habi?”

Habi’s footsteps echo throughout the stone room as he approaches. “I’ve been ordered to relay a message.” He clears his throat. “From the pharaoh. You’re to remain here and keep to your charge,
not
join in the battle.”

I turn and face my general, gathering the thin linen along my legs, and take in his luminous, kohl-rimmed eyes—the contrast between the blue blaze and black unearthly. They illuminate brighter, chasing the dark farther into the shadows of my room.

“
You’ve
been ordered,” I say, raising my eyebrows. “Master Caesarion has not actually commanded
me
. . .” I trail off, allowing my intensions to linger in the air. The pharaoh and I fought this argument earlier this morning, when I expressed my desire to serve him in battle—to make sure the Roman legions would get nowhere near Alexandria. Nowhere near him. As his personal guardian, I feel it’s my duty to confront the most imposing threat against him, not simply stand at his side while he eats figs.

Oh, those threatening figs.

Habi presses his lips into a thin line. He’s displeased that I’m going against the pharaoh’s wishes, but again, our master didn’t command me.

He never has.

“I’ll be sure to express your thoughts on the matter to him,” Habi says. His glowing blue eyes that mirror my own sweep my form, allowing me one last chance to change my mind. I roll my shoulders back stubbornly, and he sighs. “Fine. Come on. I have a battle to win.”

A smile twitches at my lips. “I’m ready.” I march toward my khopesh hanging next to my shield along the sand-colored wall. Gripping the hilt, I lift it from the wall brackets, then weigh the weathered bronze blade of my sword. It curves outward, and a sharp, deadly point tips the crescent-shaped blade with a hook curving under one side. I slide it into my sash, and grab my shield.

Habi adjusts his own khopesh, making sure it’s secure in the belt around his linen shendyt. Next he twists the gold band around his left bicep, turning the engraved mark of the Kythan outward. The eye of Ra adorns his right armband. The god Set on his left. The same bands wrap my arms—all Kythan arms.

His smooth, fair skin reflects the glow of the granite fire pit lighting my room. Our skin is so unlike our masters’, with their silky tans, like bronzed gods. Ours resembles the sun-bleached limestone that covers most of Alexandria. Our shifted, Kythan features bear resemblance to the pre-defaced wall paintings throughout Egypt depicting Set—before he was vilified and made to look like the Typhonic beast—with sharp canines and pointed, wolf-like ears.

Though our glowing eyes and porcelain skin is our true form, we can also take on the guise of our masters, shifting into human appearance. It’s the look I choose to wear most; my preferred. We were created from the humans, after all. Centuries ago, the sorcerers were commissioned to fashion an unstoppable race to defend Egypt from her enemies.

We were unbeatable, thought of as descendants to the utmost deity at one time—long ago. But when the Persians raised an unstoppable army against us, we were defeated. Reduced to our once-lowly rank of servant, we were put back in our place: protectors of the pharaohs.

Whoever reigns over Egypt as Pharaoh, it is our bound duty to serve them. No matter the blood that courses through their veins; whether it’s Egyptian or other. Such as the Ptolemies, our newest masters, who are of Greek ancestry.

The Shythe Kythan wields Charge, like bolts of lightning from the heavens. And the Narcolym Kythan summons Flame, the fire of the earth. Together we are Kythan Guardians, keepers of the pharaohs. And the swirled ink along our necks, our power source, marks us as their protectors . . . and their slaves.

Today, the Egyptian ruler Pharaoh Cleopatra VII moves her army to the Actium shore, where she and her husband Marcus Antonius will guard against a naval invasion from Octavian, the adopted son of the late Caesar, who battles for control of Rome. The queen takes with her half the Kythan Guardians to the Greece coastline, leaving us behind to defend Alexandria from Octavian’s land legions.

But I fear the battle in Actium is only a diversion for Octavian’s true intensions: sacking Alexandria and executing Pharaoh Caesarion. As Caesarion is the only blood son of Caesar, Octavian’s fears are just. The king of Egypt is the true heir to the Roman throne. But it’s not my place to question the queen’s judgment. She’s his mother, after all. Cleopatra loves her first son, and she wouldn’t go off to war and leave him vulnerable. I grip the hilt of my sword, my purpose rising within me.

I will do everything within my bestowed powers to protect my charge—even stubbornly antagonizing him by going into battle.

Habi steps before me, interrupting my speculations. “The Narcolym have already encountered troops moving in from the red land,” he says. “We’re joining them to counter the attack.”

I nod and head for the doorway. “It wouldn’t be wise for Octavian to send all of his ground troops with our army only just leaving.” I push through the wooden door and step into the dusk. I look up at the ash swirling against the skyline. “I don’t think he’d do so. We should be able to beat them back easily enough.” I believe my words, but a sliver of doubt creeps its way in. This has to be an assessment—Octavian testing the guardians to see what he’s up against. No war will be waged today.

A pang of longing hits my chest. I say a silent prayer to Isis to keep my master safe—and the same for me for when I return. A flash of Caesarion’s stormy green eyes as we fought flickers in my mind, and I’m ashamed we parted in anger. Goddess help me when I have to go before him again. I can already hear his rant as he scolds me.

I already miss him.

I’ll return to you
.

Thirty Shythe Guardians march
on Canopic Way.

Our feet pound the granite street, echoing off the massive stone colonnades lining the boulevard like rumbling thunder, low and angry. Oblong fountains stretch the center of the Canopic, and our heavy footfalls ripple the clear pools of water.

The normally packed, gridded streets are quiet. They’re usually teeming with people: slaves, nobles, Egyptians, Greeks, Nubians, Jews; mingling, debating, haggling, philosophizing. But today the diverse citizens hide away in their homes, locked behind their quarters’ gates in the different districts of the city.

As we approach the high pillars of the west gate, I look up at the elaborate capitals ornamented with acanthus leaves. Below, hieroglyphs carved in relief adorn the columns; Greek architecture blending with Egyptian. This is truly the new world.