to. The black river of ants divided into a dozen streams, swarming the fallen trunks laid across the moats.
Even then, the Sapa Inca’s men fought. From atop the ramparts of the fortress, they emptied vessels of oil into the moat. They threw down flaming brands, and the surface of the water caught fire.
“Oh, clever!” Raphael said in admiration, gripping my arm. “Very clever!”
I pulled away from him.
He glanced at me. “You yearned for my touch once, Moirin.”
I wrapped my arms around myself. “That was a long, long time ago.”
Through the flames, the ants persevered. There were just too gods-bedamned many of them. Thousands after thousands, they clambered across logs crumbling into glowing embers, they forged living, writhing bridges across the moat.
Some died, sizzling. Some were swept away in the torrent and carried into the canal system.
Still, they kept coming and coming until the moat was black with their bodies. Ant crawled over ant, obedient to Raphael’s orders. They scaled the walls of the fortress in a relentless rising tide. The fortress could have held out against a human onslaught for as long as its stores lasted. It was not built to withstand this.
Soon there were screams.
I felt sick. Raphael stood beside me, his eyes wide and unseeing, his nostrils twitching as he received messages borne on the air by his unnatural insect army. “They are beginning to flee,” he informed his herald. “Tell the men to make ready.”
The herald called out the order and the men spread out around the moat, weapons at the ready.
It was only a matter of minutes before the doors to the fortress were unbarred from within. Quechua warriors in padded armor staggered out, brushing frantically at themselves, plunging heedlessly into the waters of the moat.
The first wave of the Sapa Inca’s men to struggle ashore through the waist-deep water were cut down ruthlessly, hacked by swords and bludgeoned by clubs. It was not until those behind them began to cry out in supplication that Raphael ordered his men to stay their hands.
“You did not need to kill them!” I whispered in horror. “They’re fleeing!”
“They opposed me,” he replied in a pitiless tone. “Bloodshed is the only language men such as these understand.”
Ants streamed out of the fortress, regrouping in twin columns on the far side of the moat, apparently held in abeyance once more by Raphael’s order. Between the columns of ants, grown men shivered and wept, jostling one another as they cast terrified glances at the waiting ants.
One who was not weeping pushed his way through the throng, his face impassive. Plates of gold were sewn into his armor, immense gold plugs stretched his earlobes, and he wore an elaborate gold headdress adorned with feathers and red woolen fringe. A pair of younger warriors flanked him.
Raphael smiled. “At last.”
The Sapa Inca Yupanqui approached the edge of the moat and halted, his gaze seeking Raphael’s. “You are the one who calls himself Lord Pachacuti.” He cast a raking glance over the steel-clad warriors. “I see you have my most useless son with you.”
“May I kill him myself, Lord Pachacuti?” Prince Manco called in a high, fierce voice, his gauntleted hand clutching his sword-hilt.
Ignoring him, Raphael murmured to his herald.
“The Divine Lord Pachacuti offers you the honor of death by his own hand!” the herald announced.
The Sapa Inca was silent a moment. “If I consent to this, will you accept the surrender of my people?” he inquired. “Will you spare them further bloodshed and horror?”
This time, Raphael deigned to reply on his own. “If they will acknowledge me the Sapa Inca, I will do so.”
The ruler of Tawantinsuyo gave a single curt nod. “Then it shall be so.” He turned to the throng behind him. “Such is my final act. When I am slain, you will kneel and swear loyalty to Lord Pachacuti. I order it so!”
There were a few cries of protest, and the two warriors at his side, whom I guessed to be two of his other sons, argued bitterly against it, but the vast majority of Qusqu’s army, trapped between the heavily guarded moat and the seething mass of ants, simply looked stunned and relieved.
Waving all protests into silence, the Sapa Inca Yupanqui called for a ladder to be brought forth from the fortress and laid across the moat. His own sons lowered it in place, their copper-skinned faces expressionless save for the tears that streaked them. As the Sapa Inca made his careful way across the rungs, I found myself weeping, too.
Upon