"What about this one?" Medjhah asked Mo'atabar, kicking the child-taker.
"What about him? He's dead, isn't he?"
"Bled to death, looks like."
"Leave him lie. Fa'tad will send a cleanup gang in tomorrow. Let them worryabout it. I'm too damned tired. All I want to do is get down and lie down."
Medjhah shrugged. He nudged the dead man with his toe. "He was a toughbastard. For a veydeen."
"Wonderful epitaph, Medjhah. A real Dartar eulogy. It's your turn on the rope.
Mind the slick."
Those who were sent into the citadel to take prisoners and loot and dispose ofthe dead failed to find a corpse atop the tower. The disappearance was a greatpuzzle but no one worried it long.
Aaron had said it was over. That was not quite true. History is the wholeloaf, not just a slice. History is a river flowing, events its tributaries.
The end of Aaron Habid's tale was but an event in other stories.
Epilog One: Immediate Events Six days after the fall of the citadel Cretius Marco met the Turok raiders inbattle. He slew or captured all but a handful. The same day, a hundred mileseast, Diro Lucillo received word of events in Qushmarrah. He turned on hisDartar auxiliaries. Joab extricated his men, fled eastward, seized control ofthe fortified bridges behind the expeditionary force. Four days later, in alightning strike, his men captured the Seven Towers. Qushmarrah could not beapproached from the west.
Earlier, the Herodian fleet had made harbor in Qushmarrah and been capturedintact.
Eight days after the fall, after intense discussions with Colonel Sisu bel- Sidek, Fa'tad al-Akla proclaimed the Dartar kingdom of Qushmarrah. Bel-Sidekserved as his grand vizier the rest of his days.
Several senior officers of the Living did not survive to see the founding ofthe new estate.
Fa'tad sent to the Khadatqa Mountains for the rest of his people. Thus did heovercome the relentless drought.
Eighteen days after the fall, encouraged by the Herodian disaster to the west, Chorhkni of Aquira marched. He and his allies scored several early successes, but one too many when they captured the commanding Herodian general. Therefugee general Lentello Cado replaced him. He ruined Aquiran ambitions atAlgedo, where, when the allies withdrew, Chorhkni and all his sons remaineddead upon the field.
Epilog Two: A Longer View The Dartar Kings of Qushmarrah were five: Fa'tad, who ruled eighteen years; Joab, who reigned six months; Moamar, who lived three years; Faruk, whosurvived nine; and Juba. Juba ruled for twenty-nine years and was at war everyminute of the final twenty-eight.
Aaron Habid remained a shipbuilder all his days. From his yard came the swiftgalleys that held Herod's fleets at bay. His son Arif followed in hisfootsteps. But his son Stafa became a famous privateer, one of those fearlessshipmasters whose predations so incensed Herod that the Imperial Senatedeclared the Third Qushmarrahan War. His sister-in-law, Tamisa, dedicatedherself to Aram and so died childless.
Naszif bar bel-Abek pursued a distinguished career in Hero-dian service, attaining the proconsular rank and governing three different eastern provincesbefore his retirement to a villa in Carenia. His son, Zouki (Succo), became afamous jurist and philosopher. A grandson, Probio, elevated the family tosenatorial rank.
Lentello Cado died an old and bitter man, still in exile on the nether shore.
None of his magnificent efforts to illustrate the Herodian name earned theforgiveness of his enemies in Herod.
The brothers Nogah, Medjhah, and Yoseh inherited the wild mantle of Fa'tad al- Akla. On land and sea they harried the Herodian lion wherever it appeared.
In the fourth year of the Third Qushmarrahan War, Yoseh led a fleet into theharbor of Utium, the port of Herod. He burned the city and the unpreparedHerodian fleet, then ravaged the suburbs of Herod itself but failed topenetrate the city wall.
In the eleventh year of the war the brothers landed an army in Edria, north ofHerod, and sustained it there fourteen years, devouring everything Herod sentagainst them, twice besieging Herod itself. They fought boldly and valiantlybut in the end the superior stubbornness and vaster resources of Herodprevailed.
The Third Qushmarrahan War lasted twenty-eight years. Qushmarrah won everymajor battle but the last, before the city wall.
Herod's legions razed Qushmarrah to the last stone. Two centuries later theemperor Petia Magna ordered a new city built upon the site. It took the nameQushmarrah but was Herodian to the bone.
Qushmarrah fell in Yoseh's seventy-fourth year. He survived thirteen more, anactive pirate till the day he succumbed to a stray arrow sped by a Herodianmarine.
An old hermit in the sinkhole country lived nearly as long, hunting andfishing and occasionally visiting one of the nearer villages to amuse himselfwith news of the latest foibles of the world. He never looked back, never had any regrets.