The Solomon Curse Read Free

the unyielding rock carried half a mile inland, wiping the ground clean like the swipe of the sea god’s hand.
    That night, the shaman and a handful of the survivors huddled around a campfire, well away from the shore, the ocean no longer their benevolent provider.
    â€œIt is the end of days,” the holy man said with the conviction of a true believer. “Our ruler has angered the giant gods. There is no other explanation for what we endured. We have been cursed for our arrogance and all we can do is pray for forgiveness and return to lives of humility.”
    The men nodded. Their king had put himself on the same level as the giant gods and had been punished for his insufferable sin of pride. His temples and palace were gone, and he with them, erased as though he’d never existed.
    In the following days, the survivors gathered and spoke in hushed tones of the day the gods’ harsh justice had been meted out. The holy men gathered for a summit, and after three nights emerged from their sacred grove to counsel the islanders. The king’s name must never be spoken again, and any reference to his kingdom, his temples to his own glory, would be erased from their collective memory. The only hope was that by banishing his existence from the island’s lore, the giants would be appeased and forgive the islanders for his actions.
    The stretch of coast where the city had once stood was considered cursed by those who lived through the disaster. Over time, the precise reason was forgotten, as were the events of the dark times that ended the island’s prosperity. Eventually, the cove that looked out over theplacid bay became an encampment of the diseased and the dying, a place of suffering colored by a reputation for misfortune that grew hazier over the years.
    Occasionally the king’s name could be heard as a muttered curse, but, beyond that, his thousand-year legacy faded into obscurity, and within a few lifetimes Loc was only remembered in forbidden stories told in whispers by the rebellious. The legend of his divine palace and its riches diminished with each successive generation until finally it was considered to be folklore, ignored by the young, who had no time for the fearful stories of the past.

CHAPTER 2
    Solomon Sea, February 8, 1943
    Gale-force winds churned the heavy seas into white foam as the Japanese destroyer
Konami
plowed southeast of Bougainville Island. The ship was running without lights in the predawn gloom as it bucked through the massive waves. Engines strained as forty- and fifty-foot breaking cliffs of black water slammed into the bow.
    Conditions aboard were miserable. The vessel rolled ominously as it pursued a course well away from the calm straits to the west, where the naval force evacuating the last of the soldiers stationed on Guadalcanal was steaming through flat ocean.
    The YÅ«gumo-class destroyer, with a long waterline and sleek engineering, was capable of over thirty-five knots wide open. But tonight it was crawling along at less than a third of that speed, and the power plants throbbed steadily belowdecks as the weather slowed its progress to a crawl.
    The sudden squall had hit unexpectedly, and the exhausted andemaciated soldiers being transported home were hard-pressed to keep their rations of rice down. Even the seasoned faces of the sailors were strained at the pounding they were receiving. One of the seamen moved along the cots, dispensing water to the soldiers, offering what limited comfort he could. Their uniforms were little more than rags now, their bodies in the final throes of starvation.
    On the bridge, Captain Hashimoto watched as the helmsman tried to meet the chaotic swells to soften the worst of them. There seemed to be no rhythm or direction to the confused seas, and the ship was battling to stay on course. He’d briefly considered deviating to flatter water but had chosen to keep forging north toward Japan. His schedule allowed no time for