Lion of the Sands

by Robert Sullivan

  * * *

  (Here endeth the first night of words of Agymah Chahine of Abydos - for he has fallen asleep – scribed by Imhotep, Son of Shariff, in the City of Memphis in the 33rd year of Kheper-Ka-Re. These words are written in the Month of Abib in the Season of the Harvest.)

  Part II - The Army of the Pharaoh

  (Here is written the second night of words of Agymah Chahine of Abydos - scribed by Imhotep, Son of Shariff, at the house of Khuyb, Daughter of Agymah, in the City of Memphis in the 33rd year of Kheper-Ka-Re. So it is written in the month of Abib in the Third Season of Shemu.)

  And so we sat at the feet of our father, on that night so long ago, and he told us of the coming plague. And of what might be done about it. He was very serious and we talked for many hours of things we might do. But, in truth, we did not know our enemy. I do not think that anyone quite knew the enemy at that time. Perhaps only the Pharaoh and his armies. For they had been fighting the Beast for many moons, greater than a score, beating it back at the far reaches of the nation, the soldiers of the Pharaoh dying in their thousands as they faced a ferocity and viciousness never before known to man.

  My father told us a little of these things, all that he knew. He told us that the Pharaoh’s armies had pitched their tents in the far west of the country, deep within the Empty Quarter. The Pharaoh had received early warnings of the approaching plague, a terror that had sprung unknown and unforeseen from the forests of the south. For longer than 15 moons the Pharaoh’s armies fought the plague. But it spread like wildfire, tearing through the communities and farmlands to the south and west and leaving them desolate of all life and hope. Survivors had fled, terrified, to the larger villages, or the sea ports in the north, and raised the warning. Yet barely had they arrived that the plague had followed, overrunning the small legions that defended the villages and killing everyone and everything that remained.

  It was called a plague. And rightly it was a plague. But a plague of great difference to those that we have known. We have seen the sky filled with grasshoppers, that ravenous insect of the south. In some years, when sufficient rain and great warmth have combined, the grasshoppers have come. They have come in their countless hordes and devoured our grain and our vegetables. They devoured anything that they could settle upon. Even our clothing has not been spared. We have seen the terrible rotting sickness that afflicts the unclean, and seen them banished to the wilderness, their faces falling away in pieces, their limbs crooked and broken, their toes and fingers black and stinking. This is truly a terrible disease and one that our physicians cannot heal. We have seen the strange lumps that appear, as if by magic, across the bodies of our children, their skin so hot to the touch as to be of a furnace, their small bodies wracked with so much pain and suffering, the lumps bursting and weeping with yellow pus. We have seen them die a wretched death from this strange illness, brought to our shores, as told by the priests and physicians, by sailors who have known an unholy union with the sirens of the deep. Again we can only watch as our loved ones pass from us.

  But all of these plagues are of the body or of the earth, no matter their origin. We fought the grasshoppers by locking our granaries and closing our doors and windows. We fought the rotting disease by banishing those who transgressed. This was cruel but it was done to protect the many. We fought the dreadful lumps disease with ointments and hot baths and, with time, the battle was won. But this time it was a plague unlike any that we had seen, a plague sent by demons, a plague of animals so mighty and so terrible that no man could stand before them, a plague of thousands upon thousands, streaming across the land and destroying all that lay in their path. The Bedouin called it the Lion of the Sands. My father called it, simply, the Beast.

  My father said the plague was too fearful, too mighty, too vast to contain. That part of the nation larger than the size of the whole of Fayoum had been laid waste, and stripped of life. He said that the Pharaoh was raising new taxes to equip the army to better repel the plague. And that one report from the battle said that five thousand and more of the Beasts were seen in attack. We looked to each other in fear. No army upon the earth could prevail against such numbers. For it was said that each Beast was the equal of a score of men in full armour. Nay. Two score.

  I asked my father from whence did the Beast come. And why did it come? My father’s face glowed yellow in the light of the fire as he spoke to us. It came from the far south he said, further even than the lands of the Nubians or the Dervishes. From a land thick with trees. Trees so plentiful and so closely grown with vines and reeds as to hide all manner of beast and bird. He said that the priests had prayed to Thoth, he of all heka and knowledge, and they had seen a vision, a vision of a land once rich and overflowing with bounty, now stripped of life by the Beast, so bare of sustenance that nothing could live, so bare that at last the Beast itself must leave, moving north in its legions, destroying all before it until at last it came to the land of Egypt.

  Now it should be known that we lived under the reign of Pharaoh Senusret I, who came to power in the 21st year of the 12th Dynasty. The Pharaoh brought a common touch to his reign, more so than the pomp and splendour of the Old Kingdom. He did not seek to mimic the mighty pyramids of the past, but chose a path that brought him closer to his subjects. For this he was revered. He was not regarded as a warlike or aggressive Pharaoh and was loved as a fair and just ruler. But, although the Pharaoh was a quiet man, we did not realise that he was also blessed with the stubbornness of the ox. When the plague came to the land of Egypt he chose to fight, not to flee. Such was his nature. And this was how my adventure began.

  * * *

  On the 16th day of the moon of Mshir, in the 5th year of Senusret I, men of the Pharaoh’s army came to our door and struck the wood loudly with the hilts of their swords. We knew why they came, for news is swift in the souqs. And bad news most swift. The Pharaoh’s army came seeking recruits in the battle against the Plague of the Desert. Each family answered the Pharaoh’s call with a single son. And because I was a young man, unmarried, with a strong back and of the right age, they had come for me. My brothers were spared and for this my mother wept. But she also wept for me.

  It was but three moons past that our father had spoken with us and, in the days thereafter, the stories from the market became more terrible with each day. The merchants were nervous. Some packed their goods and set off for the Port of Merimbda in the north. Others lingered, greedy for any morsel they could prise from unwitting and, often, unwilling buyers, but becoming more worried by the day. Even the women did not gather at the well so much, instead rushing quickly to and fro, gathering their daily needs and casting watchful eyes at their children. A dark pall of fear seemed to lay itself upon the city. The traders and Bedouin that came to the city spoke of an army in retreat, of whole towns laid waste and thousands dead, of the fearful scourge that travelled so quickly across the country, striking with terrible ferocity and sparing none. Some said that all was lost.

  I did not let these thoughts confuse me. I knew that I must answer the Pharaoh’s call. I went forth, on that night so long ago, and joined with a large throng of other men, young men who did not fear the need to die in service of the Pharaoh. This was a plague upon our nation that must be met with courage and strength. I, as it was with many of my countrymen, was willing to follow our Pharaoh down that fearful path.

  We formed in the large square beside the Temple of Osiris. The Centurions shouted rudely at us until we had formed a large phalanx, which seemed to please them. They marched us out of the city to the army camp on the edge of the sands. The camp contained many tents, laid out in straight lines to catch the morning sun. One of the Centurions said there were ten thousand new men at the camp. I was pleased to see that many of my friends had also joined the Pharaoh’s army. As a small boy I had attended temple instruction with Naguib, the two Omars, Heqaib, Isesi and Minkaf. I saw Naguib from a distance, his huge nose and the purple stain that spread across the right side of his face mark
ing him in the crowd. I ran over and embraced them all and, by good fortune, we all managed to secure a tent together. It was a happy reunion. If only we had known the perils that lay before us.

  * * *

  Our training was swift and brutal. We did not speak of it but we knew the haste was borne of the battles in the west. The army was awash with rumour and each day brought news. Of battles lost, of many men dead or injured, of further advances by the Beast. But never did we waver. Our Centurions drove us mercilessly, until we fell upon our blankets with exhaustion, unable even to eat before sleeping. But with each day our strength grew. And with it our confidence. And the weapons they gave to us. Never had we seen such weapons. Huge spears of bronze, their tips so sharp as to pierce armour, their weight such that a strong man might barely lift them. Long bows, as tall as a man, strung with cured hide cut in thin strips and rolled to form a plaited cord. Arrows that were the height of a man, and made of wood and feathers with a bronze barb almost a cubit in length. Each bow could throw the arrow five hundred cubits, further than any other weapon. The barb on each arrow was curved and notched and in the spaces we fitted pitch and potions. We would burn and poison the Beast with our arrows, and pierce its hide with our spears.

  But there was ill news from the battlefront. Though the cohorts went forth with the new weapons, still they retreated before the Beast. One report said that ten thousand men had died in a single battle. We knew this to be untrue as it would be a full fifth of the Pharaoh’s men. So we believed. You can imagine our horror when the Centurion told us that indeed ten thousand had died. He said that the army had lost thirty thousand men in the battle with the Beast, and that the whole of the army that remained was not greater than thirty thousand. Many new men were joining the army but they died more quickly under the claws of the Beast than could be trained by the Centurions. I must be true and say that my heart turned cold at this news.

  As we marched from the camp to the battlefront we passed the wounded. They travelled on foot and in carts and wagons, many bandaged, many without limbs, some with terrible scars and weeping wounds. It seemed that their number was without end. We looked to each other and wondered. How many men would be needed to kill the Beast? How many years? Perhaps the Beast could not be defeated. Perhaps the Gods had decreed that we die like our comrades, bravely but without purpose, that the evil of the Beast was unbreakable. I felt the fear rise within me though I fought it back. Around me I saw those same doubts and fears in the eyes of my comrades.

  We were twenty day’s march from the city, nearing the edge of the Empty Quarter, when we heard the sound of battle. We were tired, the sun turning our armour into heated plates, our feet blistered from the rough thongs of our sandals, our legs and shoulders aching from the weight of armour and weapons as we climbed the endless dunes. Our destination was the latest battlefront in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains, in the Valley of the Winds, to which the Pharaoh’s army had retreated after many defeats. But at last there had come good news. For it seemed that the mountains and gullies did not suit the Beast as did the open spaces of the desert. It could not move with ease among the sharp rocks of the mountains. Our Centurion had news of two battles, that the Pharaoh’s line had held, using the rocks and the broken ground to fight the Beast and, it was said, trap and kill many. At his words our spirits were lifted and we cheered and held our weapons high. Soon it would be our turn. Soon we would turn the Beast, and defeat it.

  * * *

  (Here endeth the second night of words of Agymah Chahine of Abydos - for he has drunk much wine and become difficult and flatulent – scribed by Imhotep, Son of Shariff, in the City of Memphis in the fourth year of the Ox.)

  Part III - A Terrible Defeat

  (Here is written the third night of words of Agymah Chahine of Abydos - scribed by Imhotep, Son of Shariff, at the house of Khuyb, Daughter of Agymah, in the City of Memphis in the 33rd year of Senusret I, Pharaoh of all Egypt. Khuyb grinds ink and prepares papyrus).

  We were a full day’s march from the Valley of the Winds but in the distance we saw smoke, tall black spirals against the white desert sky. The clash of weapons came faint upon the wind with the roar of many men, and above it, like the howl of the desert Djinns from whence it came, the screams of the Beast. I felt my heart turn in my chest and my body turn to ice and, for a short moment in the sun, I again doubted our success. I wondered too of my comrades. Did they feel as did I? For we did not know of the test we were to face in the next hours. As I look back I know that it was better that we did not know, for what we were soon to face would turn men’s hair white and their faces to those of older men.

  At the sounds of battle our Centurions formed us into cohorts of two hundred men, spear carriers to the fore, archers and slingsmen in the centre, drums to the rear. As the drums began to beat, a deep, steady throb, we began to move forward, at greater speed than we had marched but not a full run, all men in step with the beat of the drums. The crash of our weapons and feet and the pounding of the drums echoed off the hills to the sides of the valley. We felt another surge of excitement. There were two score cohorts marching in step. What could withstand this mighty army? What could withstand these weapons or these many brave men? As Naguib and I were the tallest men and with greater strength, we were spear carriers. The Omars and Minkaf, though not as large as Naguib and I, were also very strong. They carried the huge bows. Isesi ran at the back, a drum strapped to his shoulder, a long stick in his hand, striking the drum at each step. I said a short prayer for my comrades.

  The cohorts ran ten wide, each with twenty men across its front. We moved quickly to the head of the valley and turned as one onto the flat ground between the hillsides. Ahead we could see the boiling dust of the battle and glimpse strange shapes, enormous shapes that seemed to fly through the dust. We saw the flash of weapons in the sun, and heard the roar of the men and the screams as they were destroyed. And for the first time, we heard, louder and more terrible than before, the screams of the Beast. The Centurions shouted, and for a moment the line slowed, then the drums began to beat more quickly and, with a roar of pride and anger, the line surged forward, and in that final moment as the dust cleared, before us opened the maw of hell.

  I ran beside Naguib in the second rank, our spears held upright, our shields heavy on our arms. My ears were filled with the roaring of my comrades and the sounds of battle, my eyes streaming from the dust and sand, my heart bursting, an equal mixture of fear and pride. When I looked at Naguib I could see he was of the same mind, his mouth open, his teeth bared, his eyes wide like the madmen that visited from the land of the Dervish. Next to me a man tripped and was gone, crushed beneath the armoured mass that rushed behind. Of the following battle I can recall little. It seemed that we ran into a boiling cauldron of death, the crucible of the Gods of the Afterlife, a world of crashing steel, of dying men and screaming Beasts, of blinding dust amid beams of blinding light, of blood and flashing claws that tore flesh from flesh, of noise so loud as to crowd all sense from your mind, such that your chest became like stone, and you could not breath.

  I remember my fear when the first Beast attacked us. To my left there was a huge roar and a crash and screams of men then the air split with the howl of the Beast. Men all around me screamed. I screamed. For the Beast was among us. I saw parts of men fly above my head and saw other men turn, ready to run. But Centurions shouted and the drums beat and we formed a line, our huge spears like a wall of death in front of us. It was then that I had my first sight of the Beast. To my shame my bowels failed me. But I was not alone. The Centurions had prepared us well. Our training had been hard, as hard as men could bear in so short a time. But it did not prepare us for the sight of the Beast, for it was more terrible than any could imagine. It stood the height of a camel and was wide as two oxen. It’s length was that of four men, perhaps five, its legs thicker than the columns of the temple at Thebes and, as it reared high over the line, I saw claws a full cubit in length. Its hide resembled armour
, thick and coarse and the colour of ash. But the most fearsome part of the Beast was its head. A mouth that opened so wide as to take a man with full armour and crush him like a dry gourd. With yellow teeth sharper than my spear and as long as my forearm, that pierced the body and tore it into pieces. With eyes that flashed red in the sunlight, and that which pierced the heart, the terrible scream that seemed to freeze men where they stood, so that they could not move, until swept away in the storm of blood and broken bone of the Beast’s attack. It was a terrible sight. And though I am now an old man, still my dreams trouble me, and on even the hottest nights the water is cold upon my skin. And if I hear the sound of a distant hyena or jackal my heart will bump in my chest. It is something I can never forget.

  The air above me whispered as a thousand shafts leapt from their bows, the archers loosing arrow after arrow at the attacking Beast. I saw many rear up as the arrows struck them, then drop to the ground, tearing at the arrows lodged in their eyes. But I saw many more rush at us through the storm of death with arrows bouncing from their hides as if chaff before the scythe. The Beast came at us at a pace greater than the fastest horse, as fast even as an arrow, leaps of fifty, nay sixty, cubits at one bound. I saw nothing else but the Beast, its maw open and screaming, the air shivering around me. It struck the line only three men to my right, breaking their bodies and spears as twigs and throwing men and armour into the air. A rush of foul air, worse than a rotting carcass, washed over me. The gorge rose in my throat and I remembered the old Bedouin. I felt a spray of warmth blow across my cheeks and saw that my arms and legs were red with blood. Near my foot lay an arm, next to that a head, the eyes still open, staring in fear. I knew then that we were doomed. That the Beast was too quick, too large, too fierce, that our weapons were as the reeds of the Nile that sway and bend in the wind. That nothing would stand against it.