Free The Warlords of Nin by Stephen Lawhead Page A

to the hall, clapped his hands, and shouted, “The Deity walks! Kneel before him, everyone!” He went before his sovereign, clapping his hands and shouting the warning. Nin followed slowly, balancing his immense bulk upon ponderous legs.
    As they reached a short flight of stairs that led upward to the deck of the palace ship, Uzla clapped his hands again, and eight attendants brought a throne on poles. They placed the throne before their king, and he lowered himself onto it. Then, straining every muscle, the chair bearers climbed the steps, careful to keep the throne level, lest they incur the wrath of their temperamental god. Soon they moved out upon the deck.
    Two more attendants waited on deck with large shades made of brilliant feathers. As soon as Nin’s chair emerged out upon the deck, the huge, burly head was shaded from the bright sunlight of a beautiful summer day. The attendants swayed under the weight of their burden, but proceeded down a long ramp that had been erected out over the shallow water from the palace ship to the shore. The ramp terminated in a platform on the beach, forming a dais from which Nin the Destroyer could command his subjects.
    At the sight of this procession moving slowly down the ramp, the four warlords dismounted and drew near to the dais, prostrating themselves in the sand. The chair bearers reached the platform and placed the mobile throne squarely in the center of the dais, beneath
a broad canopy of rich blue silk. Then they withdrew to await their king’s command, kneeling with their faces touching their knees.
    The blue silk ruffled in the soft sea breeze. Above the dais, gulls wheeled in the air and shrieked at the spectacle below. Nin raised his hands and said, “Arise, my warlords. You may look upon your Deity.”
    The warlords, clad in their heavy armor, rose stiffly to their feet and stood shoulder to shoulder before their patron.
    â€œI have seen your victory from afar,” Nin continued. “With my own eyes I witnessed the flames of destruction. I am well pleased. Now tell me, my commanders, what is the strength of this land? Is there an army to stand before the Destroyer’s blade?” He looked at the four fighting men and nodded to one of them who stepped forward slowly. “Gurd?”
    The warrior struck his heart with his closed hand; the mailed fist clanked dully upon the bronze breastplate. His long straight black hair was pulled tightly back and bound at the back of his head in a thick braid.
    Quick black eyes set in a smooth, angular red face watched Nin closely. “I have seen no soldiers in the south, Immortal One. The peasant villages were unprotected.”
    â€œAmut.”
    The warrior advanced. His gleaming head was shaved completely bald, except for a short bob of hair that he wore tied in a tight knot. On his cheeks and forehead were strange blue tattoos, and a ragged scar streaked from the corner of one almond-shaped eye to the base of a thick, muscular neck. “In the north we encountered no soldiers, Great One. The cowardly populace fled before our arrows like leaves before the storm.”
    â€œLuhak,” called Nin, and the third warlord stepped forward.
    Luhak touched his bearded chin with a brown hand. His head was covered in a helm of white horsehide that sprouted a short plume made from a horse’s tail at its crest. He was tall and lean, and when he opened his wide mouth to speak, a row of pointed white teeth flashed.
    â€œI encountered but one village in the mountainous interior of this land, named Gaalinpor,” the warrior said. “No army could cross those mountains in surprise. We may turn our eyes elsewhere.”
    â€œBoghaz.”
    The last warlord, a towering black man whose features were hidden beneath the veil that covered the lower part of his face, revealing only his large, dark eyes, took his place beside the others. His head was encased in a horn-covered leather helmet, and he