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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2016
Copyright © Orion Mintaka (UK) Ltd 2016
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016
Cover photographs © Joel W. Rogers / Corbis (ship); GS / Gallery Stock (beach scene)
Map © John Gilkes 2016
Wilbur Smith asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.
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Source ISBN: 9780007535743
Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780007535736
Version: 2018-09-21
I dedicate this book to my wife, Niso.
From the day we first met she has been a constant and powerful inspiration to me, urging me on when I falter and cheering me when I succeed. I truly do not know what I would do if she were not by my side. I hope and pray that day never comes.
I love and adore you, my best girl, words cannot express how much.
They were no longer men. They were the detritus of war cast up by the Indian Ocean upon the red sands of the African continent. Most of their bodies were torn by grape shot or hacked by the keen-edged weapons of their adversaries. Others had drowned and the gas in their swollen bellies as they rotted had lifted them to the surface again like cork bungs. There the carrion-eating seabirds and the sharks had feasted upon them. Finally a very few of them had been washed through the breaking surf onto the beaches, where the human predators waited to pick them over once again.
Two small boys ran ahead of their mother and grandmother along the water’s edge, squealing with excitement every time they discovered anything deposited upon it by the sea, no matter how trifling and insignificant.
‘There is another one,’ cried the eldest in Somali. He pointed ahead to where a ship’s wooden spar was washed ashore, trailing a long sheet of torn canvas. It was attached to the body of a white man who had lashed himself to the spar with a twist of hempen rope whilst he still lived. Now the two boys stood over his carcass laughing.
‘The birds have pecked out one of his eyes,’ shouted the eldest boy.
‘And the fish have bitten off one of his arms,’ his little brother gloated, not to be outdone. A shred of torn sail canvas, obviously applied by the man while still alive, was knotted around the stump of his amputated arm as a tourniquet, and his clothing had been scorched by fire. It hung off his gaunt frame in tatters.
‘Look!’ screeched the elder boy. ‘Look at the buckle on his sword-belt. It must be made of gold or silver. We will be rich.’ He knelt beside the body and tugged at the metal buckle. At which the dead man groaned hollowly and rolled his head to glare at the boys with his one good eye. Both children screamed with horror, and the elder released his grip on the sword-belt and sprang to his feet. They rushed back to their mother and clung to her skirts whimpering and whining with terror.
The mother ran to examine the booty, dragging the children along with her on her skirts. The grandmother hobbled along behind them. Her daughter dropped to her knees beside the body and she slapped the man’s face hard. He groaned again.
‘Zinky is right. The Ferengi is still alive.’ She reached into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out the sickle with which she cut the grass to feed her chickens.