The roar that followed was overwhelming, a passionate wall of sound that struck like cannonfire; the crowds pushed and heaved against the soldiers lining the roadway and holding them back. There must be nearly twenty thousand of them along the great processional way to the harbor, every free adult in the city and many from villages and farms and estates from the countryside around. Isketerol felt himself uplifted by the love and trust he saw on their faces, purified, as if his soul had been washed in a stream of mountain water. There might be reserve from the old families, and hate from foreigners, but the commons of his own people loved the King.

Had he not lifted them up, given them mastery and wealth and health, raised the burden of killing toil from their shoulders and preserved the lives of their children? Had he not written the laws down for all to see, so that a man need not accept the memory of a noble who might twist the words to his own gain? Had he not gone with gun and fire and sacrificial throat-knife against bandit and pirate and reaving mountain savage, so that every man might harvest his field and sleep easy knowing he would keep the fruits of it?

As a father they love me, he thought. And what is a true King if not a father to the land?

Rubber tires and steel springs made the journey down the smooth stone blocks of the road easy, which was well; he'd been too much at sea from his youth to ride easily in a chariot, and with the new stirrups and saddles it was a dying art save for ceremony. Fluttering cloak of Sidonian purple, helmet gilded and plumed, glittering gold on his chest, the snarling lion-heads on the hubs of the wheels, the silver and niello and jewels on the body of the car, all blazed like the harness of a God-made a brave show for the people, heartening them still further. He looked up; balloons were floating above the forts that guarded the entrances to the harbor, tethered by long cables. As he watched a heliograph flashed code from one to the ground, and he read it effortlessly.

Enemy ships standing off the southern coast.

Trained will kept his smile from turning into a snarl. No more than three ships had come back to Tartessos from the attack on Nantucket; if all went as he intended, not one of the Islander fleet would return from the Pillars of the Earth-House. The banners and pennants on the masts that crowded the harbor indicated the wind; a bit south of west, not the most favorable but not impossible either.

Should I make them come to me here? he mused again, for the thousandth time. Then: No, my first thought was best. If we beat them at sea, all is won. If we are defeated, we can retire here behind the guns of the forts-that is a nut they will break their teeth on. But we will not be defeated-

The other priests waited by the dockside, with the sacrifices for the Sun Lord and Arucuttag. For the Sky Master a fine horse, its coat yellow-gold by nature and sparkling with gold dust, like unto the horses which drew the chariot of the Sun daily across the sky. For Arucuttag a warrior in his prime; on this day of peril not a captive but a volunteer come willing to die for his people, standing proud with the ancient ax resting across his palms, its flint head crusted with old blood and deadly holiness.

"Victory shall be ours!" Isketerol cried as his charioteer reined in. "We will feast on the fish that devour the foe, and manure our fields with the bones of the invaders!"

A slow massive wave of sound rolled back, from the streets and rooftops, from the decks of the ships and from the battlemented walls of the city he had made great.

Mighty Ones, he prayed in the silence of his mind. Take what I give, and make safe my people and the seed of my House. If the King's death is what You demand, know that I am ever willing to make the given sacrifice.

For what was a King, if not he who stood for his folk before the Great Gods?

October, 10 A.E.-Straits of the Pillars, Tartessos

November, 10 A.E.-Hattusas, Kingdom of Hatti-land

October, 10 A.E.-Straits of the Pillars, Tartessos

October, 10 A.E.-Long Island, Republic of Nantucket

"Dyce, keep her dyce," the young lieutenant by the wheels said, tapping his cane against the binnacle and pointing with it to remind the helm crew the heading they were keeping.

A platform put her head above the edge of the sheet-steel-and-timber barricade around the steering station; it wouldn't stop anything shot out of a cannon, but it would deflect grape-shot and rifle bullets.

"Thus, thus-very well, thus."

Marian Alston-Kurlelo clasped her hands behind her back, rising very slightly on the balls of her feet as the Chamberlain took the swell with a long smooth rocking-horse motion. She had spent ten years of her life building this fleet, made of wood and iron, hemp and canvas and human hearts. Now she was taking it to possible destruction, quite certain wounding and death and mutilation. Worse yet, the deeper, more atavistic fears; for Swindapa, for the children they'd left behind who might be orphaned again this day, fears of death and crippling wounds. Fear of failure worse than any, and a self-disgust at the cold exhilaration that was building beneath it all.

The flagship was leading the Guard warships in toward land, wind from the south on their starboard quarter, masts bare of all but fighting sail, with boarding nets along the sides and splinter netting overhead. The deck was nearly empty, except for the hands waiting at the lines and the Marine Gatling-gun crews crouching at the rail where their weapons snouted out from among the rolled hammocks; she looked up to the tops, where the rest of the Gatlings waited. Down again, through the deck gratings, and she could see the gun crews poised around the sleek blue-black shapes of their Dahlgrens. A. few of them looked up, showed teeth that gleamed in the dark, lifted thumbs, but most waited quiet and motionless in the dimness. There was little sound beside the creak and groan of the ship working, the occasional rutch of feet on the sanded decks- sand to keep the footing from growing slippery when the planks ran with blood and body fluids-and the song of the wind in the rigging.

The faces on the quarterdeck were equally grave and quiet, except for a few middies grinning with excitement. Alston turned and looked behind her. The five frigates followed in exact line, their wakes like a single ruled line across the purple-blue of the sea. The low coastline of southwestern Iberia was less than a hint ahead, more like a line of cloud than a firm sight of land-the heights of Gibraltar and the Sierra Nevada were far off to the southeast. Swindapa came up, saluted, and handed her a folder. It held pictures, digital video shots from pre-Event cameras borne by the scouts in the ultralights, dropped onto the Chamberlain's deck and run through the PC and printer in the radio shack.

"They're coming out," she said quietly; their eyes met, saying all that was needed.

Alston gave a small precise nod, looking at the picture. All the larger Tartessian ships, and twenty of the galleys. Fangs out and hair on fire. The enemy had fought hard during the abortive invasion of Nantucket, but they'd fight harder still here, on the doorsteps of their own homes.

What a waste.

She studied the picture. The Tartessians were forming up in a line, ragged but definitely a line, slanting down the wind to the southeast. The Islanders had the weather gauge, the wind blowing from them to the enemy, but that meant little when both sides obviously wanted a stand-up fight. The two fleets formed the acute angles of a triangle; her mind automatically extrapolated the lines. Where they met…