Country: Spain

The Caged Emperor His bruised body woke up Zula in the middle of the night. Star-lit mist had entered the dungeon wrapping the hideous air with its nebulous, wet cloak. Zulla pulled his corroded chains, in a futile effort to break free. Blood began again to ooze from either wrists but it didn´t restrain him of gripping and shaking fiercely the irons for a long while. Finally he stopped, exhausted. Above and beyond the bars a wandering dog was howling and scratching the ground of the yard. The beast had smelt his wounds and was trying to have a fleshy loot sooner than the vultures and the hyaenas. The ebony giant clenched his jaw grimly and his reddened eyes glared at his fate. He who had been the ruler of the vast lands of Kush, lay now in a cage of slaves, waiting for his own execution. Two days ago, when the full moon was hanging high above the jungle, and he was trying to sleep after a minute and long inspection of the fortress foreseeing a brutal siege, his shaman had betrayed him by guiding his slayers straight across the labyrinth of guards toward him. He heard their velvet-footed steps and the dim sound of a furtive key from his bed and instantly realized the situation. He stood up, crossed without being overheard the soft carpet and stalked his killers, brandishing a curve dagger. They were northern Shemite armed with swords, too much to beat all down, but two of them now wandered lost around the House of the Doomed. The hours went by as slowly as a lifetime, and at last the night vanished. The sacrifice drums were sounding loud while the end of Zula, emperor of Kush, came. Copyright © Fermín Moreno González 2000

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