Last Gate of the Emperor by Kwame Mbalia

Author:Kwame Mbalia [Kwame Mbalia and Prince Joel Makonnen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2021-05-04T00:00:00+00:00

“Would you stop staring out the window and help me?” the Ibis shouted. She sent the skysail zipping around the hills and in and out of the sparse trees dotting the slopes. The sun had finally risen, and the new day didn’t seem to be starting any better than the last. A tad worse, actually.

I couldn’t help but stare at our pursuers. The beetles flew in a diamond pattern. They kept a uniform distance from each other, maintaining perfect discipline as they hunted us down. The Ibis couldn’t shake them. And she tried—we flew between trees, around boulders, and through deep ravines.

“What do you want me to do?” I shouted back at her. “Send them a firm note of disapproval?”

“Do something. We’re running out of power. Once the reserves are tapped out, we’re done for.” As if on cue, the skysail shuddered, then hummed back to life. We were running out of time. I bit my lip. Besa was still searching down below, moving in circles at the base of what looked to be a steep mountain. A really steep mountain. I frowned. Actually, it was more like a cliff. And were those—yes, giant, rough-hewn stairs were carved into the side! They led up diagonally in one direction, before reversing and climbing in the opposite, zigzagging all the way up the nearly vertical surface to a dark splotch near the top.

I gasped.

It wasn’t a splotch. It was a doorway. And that wasn’t a cliff … it was a tower. Old and worn down by the elements, but definitely a tower. And if I wasn’t mistaken, it wasn’t the only one.

“I know where we are,” I said.

“What? Where are we?”

“The Ghebbi Fortress. Except …” I bit my lip. “I don’t think it’s a fortress at all. Uncle … General Moti used to say you could march to the stars if you hiked up to Ghebbi. What if … what if that wasn’t just a saying?”

The Ibis glanced over at me. “You think it’s something more? Something to do with Axum?”

I nodded. “What if Ghebbi is actually an old spaceport?”

The Ibis opened her mouth to argue, then stopped and thought. “You would need a spaceport to launch and dock supply ships and personnel, especially if Addis Prime was once part of Axum.”

“Exactly,” I said, pounding one fist into my other palm. “That has to be where the last gate is.” More proximity alerts blared in the skysail, and I gritted my teeth. “But we have to lose these beetles first, or we’ll never get to Axum.”

The Ibis tried to double back, but the beetle drones spread into a shallow claw shape, keeping us in front of them as they began to surround the skysail. Something in their formation looked familiar.

“A pincer trap,” I whispered.

“What?”

I pointed at the drones. “It’s a pincer trap. Uncle Moti—I mean General Moti—had me study this when I was in between schools. We moved a lot.”

The Ibis shot me a quick look of disbelief before returning to the controls.

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