Chapter 12
September 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
Colonel Mikhail Mannuki’ili
MIKHAIL
For five months the two elderly widow-sisters had tended this field, sinking every last good they'd owned to trade for a basket of two-rowed akiti seed from the Kemet traders, the best barley for fermenting. Descended from a long line of brewers, Yalda and Zhila could ferment the rain itself into a beverage fit for a god, but it had been him they'd entrusted with overseeing their harvest.
Little Nemesis had betrayed that trust by devouring half their field…
He stared at stalks chewed off at the nub, even grains she hadn't eaten scattered upon the ground. Good beer-barley, the widow-sisters insisted, didn't sit on the stalk like ordinary cereal grain, but shattered off the rows the moment you br
