by D.A. Dean
Chapter 30: Grave Messages
Horus jerked awake. Surely he'd just fallen asleep. "Mmph." He crossed his arms.
"O King." Tatuuf's eyes were clouded, his posture stiff. "There's been another massacre. Last night. A village a quarter day's walk from here."
Horus sat. Was it as he saw in his vision? Had it taken place while he watched? "No," he said, shielding his eyes. "No."
Tatuuf was silent a moment. "Maeta and I will make the journey along with several warriors and priestesses. Though word is none live, healers have asked to accompany us. Maeta and I have agreed. Is there anything further you command?"
Horus shook his head. What kind of god could order a massacre? What kind of humans could comply? The screams Horus heard seemed to again reverberate through him. Pushing down his shoulders, he stood. "I'm coming with you."
"You should be aware, Seht's followers are brutal. It's likely to be grim. One thing more, O King. Those sent to accompany Mehlchehsia haven't yet returned. And Petraylia, presently in our tent, searching her candle's flame, had a nightmare last night. She fears...." Hearing quick, light footfalls behind him, he turned.
Petraylia ran into the temple. Her eyes were red. She gave a single cry and covered her mouth. "O King, I have terrible news. Mehlchehsia—" she stopped, tears streaking her cheeks.
Tatuuf hastened to take her into his arms. He lifted his gaze to Horus and, expression pained, shook his head.
Horus pressed his thumbs against his lips. Osiris' sword. How was he to find it now? He bowed his head.
Petraylia wiped her cheeks and drew nearer.
Horus said, "She was a dear friend to you. I'm sorry for your loss."
"And I for yours."
His? Horus glanced at Nalia, who shook her head.
Petraylia continued, insistent, "You must go to her in the village, O King. There was a message she was bringing to you, along with something else. You must hear her words. You must find what she carried."
Horus pushed back his hair. Mehlchehsia was dead. How could she deliver a message? It was impossible. Unless she left clues for him to find that might, if he could discover and interpret them, convey what she'd come out of hiding to let him know. Her attempt to reach him had cost her life. He owed it to her, as well as the people, to try.
But he needed help. "Petraylia, Do you have any idea what she intended me to find, to know? Was she bringing a message about my father's sword?"
"No." Petraylia glanced at Tatuuf, her chin trembling.
"What did you see, my dear? You need to tell him."
Petraylia held her hand out to her husband, and he took it in his. She held her other hand to Horus.
Horus grasped it loosely, surprised anew by its lightness and seeming fragility. "You're not alone."
Petraylia nodded. She lifted her chin. "In my dream, Seht's followers were returning to him with a carefully bundled object the size of a sword. The feeling from them was both excitement and great fear. I don't know that this means Osiris' sword has been found. Even if it has, your mother's magic, laid over it, may make Seht's wielding it impossible. Well, for a time, at least."
"But Nephthys might undo Mother's magic, that's what you're saying, given enough time?" Horus sank to his haunches. "What chance do we have if Nephthys is successful and Seht can use the sword? Even if she isn't and he can't, his possessing it will crush many people's hope."
Horus laced his hands behind his neck. How could he possibly defeat Seht, older and more powerful, once Seht had the added advantages possessing the sword would impart? He spread his hand over his forehead.
No, he had to think. He didn't know what Mehlchehsia had brought with her or what her clues might reveal. Maybe the information granted would allow someone to intercept Seht's followers, prevent the sword from reaching Seht.
Mesrahan rushed to the temple door. "Chieftain. We've just returned. I...need to speak with you."
Horus motioned him inside. "We know your news."
Mesrahan's eyes glistened. "We failed you, O King."
Horus cocked his head. "Are you giving up?"
Mesrahan's brows drew together. He pulled back his shoulders. "No. O King."
"Then you haven't failed me," Horus said and stood. "You don't have the power to transport. I do. And perhaps I should have. But self-recrimination doesn't change the situation. You and those with you, Parsii, Hihlehl, and the others, did all humanly possible. I'm grateful for your safe return. Now, we have to move forward. While this is a blow, hope isn't yet lost. And we only fail if we give in to our fears. Understood?"
Nostrils flaring, Mesrahan lifted higher his chin. "Yes, My King."
"Is there any reason not to keep this news to ourselves till we get back?" Horus asked Petraylia.
"No, O King. In fact, it would be wise."
Horus cinched his sword's sheath around his waist and followed Tatuuf and Petraylia into morning sun, Teo and Nalia, who'd been standing back a few paces, joining him, Mesrahan just behind.
The petals and fronds, freshly placed around Horus' temple, released no fragrance. Trembling, women embraced and released husbands, brothers, sons. Men brushed their cheeks and offered kisses of goodbye to wives, sisters, daughters. Pale and somber, children held tightly the hands of whoever was nearest them.
One boy pulled away. "No!" Cheeks crimson, he rushed forward. "No, Mommy, don't go. Don't leave me, please. They might be hiding. They might hurt you. Don't go away like Daddy. Don't—" the boy, sobbing, collapsed into the arms of the gray-haired man who knelt beside him.
"Rahni." The healer caressed her son's cheek. Wiping her tears onto her pale blue sleeve, she touched her father's shoulder and moved to take her place among the healers circled.
Mesrahan gave her a small nod.
Was theirs another father, husband, brother who'd been lost? The fabric of so many families had been torn. Horus stared at the greying sky.
Nahtaeya hurried to him. Kneeling, she took his hand. "O King, I await your return."
She wasn't going? Horus turned his querying gaze to Maeta.
Clearing his throat, Mesrahan bowed. "O King. My warriors and I encountered Seht's band on our journey. The band was small but fierce, and it was with difficulty that we scattered it. Concerned it would regroup and focus, I informed the chieftain of the nearby village. He did not see fit to lead his people away, so we left four of our warriors to offer defense."
"Three," angling his jaw, Mesrahan stopped. "Three were killed. The fourth, Nolin, tracked Seht's followers as far as he was able before returning to us. He believes they've moved again southwest, toward Seht's encampment."
"I'm sorry for your losses," Horus said quietly. "How badly is Nolin injured?"
"His wounds are deep, but I've been told he'll recover."
"Then we can be thankful of that. Are there enough of us to pursue Seht's band once we leave the village?"
"The answer is complicated." Mesrahan turned to Tatuuf.
"They have a head start," Tatuuf said. "The closer they are to Seht's encampment, the greater the resistance we would encounter, in warriors in general, in high-ranking warriors in particular, and in harshness of terrain. After your father's death, the land shifted to desert, and Seht's encampment lies hard within it."
"You advise against marching on it."
"At this time, yes."
"Because I don't have the weapon I needed?"
"No, O King. Because we aren't yet prepared."
Horus studied him. "In what regards specifically?"
"We don't yet have sufficient knowledge or number for such an assault. Nor," Tatuuf lowered his voice, "nor are you fully prepared, O King."
Horus' eyebrow arched. "I see."
Tatuuf pulled down his shoulders, the lines over his face deepening.
Scratching his brow, Horus nodded. "I appreciate your candor, Chieftain, as well as your courage. Later
I hope you'll explain what you feel I myself still require."
Tatuuf drew a breath, his expression clearing.
Horus moved into the circle of warriors, healers, and priestesses and lifted his face to sky. The rain held no taste. "Light of All That Is, in our mourning, we ask for strength." Murmured repetition of his words surrounded him. "Now we go to the fallen. Now we march."
Family members holding close their remaining loved ones stood to the side, silent.
Horus wanted to comfort them, but what assurance could he offer that all with him would safely return, that those left in the encampment would be kept from harm? He slowed. At least he could determine whether danger was close.
Falcon, he lifted to survey the grasses, marsh, and sea behind. To the left, grasses as far as he dared soar. To the right, the river. Ahead, trees and more grasses. He circled, counting the warriors, difficult to catch sight of even from above, guarding the encampment's perimeter. He swooped past a Third Order Warrior guarding the marsh.
The man's shoulders twitched, but he held his position.
Such control. Almost as great as Teo's. Horus turned and soared toward the fires in the distance. What looked like the outline of huts wavered through the sudden haze. Was this the village? He drifted lower into the smoke, the current shuddering.
"Yes, come closer and see hint of my talents."
The current, sharpening, caught Horus' wings. Rough-damp nothing slipped round his throat.
"Ah, a bird in my little net." A presence drew nearer. "Concede and I might allow you to be released. Come to me willingly, and I might allow you to choose."
Instinctively, Horus dived, spiraling. The binding slipped away. He veered, splitting the current before ascending. Choose?
Teo. Nalia. Frightened, Horus pushed along the streams of air back to the encampment. Nalia walked beside Maeta, Teo a short way ahead beside Tatuuf. Horus returned to his own form and landed between them.
The throng cheered. Some among it began to jump in place. Others held high their hands and called, "King Horus! King Horus!" Children, flapping their arms as they ran, joined the chant.
Hands clasped, Horus pressed his knuckles to his lips and released a long breath before rubbing his brow and glancing at Tatuuf.
Though he nodded, Tatuuf's eyes remained full of foreboding, as did Teo's.
At least they understood Horus' transformation offered no prediction of victory against Seht, changed nothing of what they'd find in the village. Horus clenched his jaw.
"O Majestic King Horus!"
Teo edged closer. "Safe?"
Horus answered, "I didn't see any sign of Seht's followers, but I couldn't see into the village."
"O Glorious King Horus!"
"Maddening." Horus pushed his hands through his hair.
Teo lowered his gaze. "You should acknowledge them."
"They don't understand."
"They understand more than you think. They need this."
"Well, I don't need this pressure." Horus bit his lip. Dutifully, he waved to the crowd. Before long he and his band would be beyond the boundary of the encampment, beyond the people's calls. He quickened his pace, hurrying the formation ahead of him.
At the edge of the clearing, the people stopped. "Great King Horus!" Their shouts faded.
The grasses thickened. The depth and scope of their stretches was greater than Horus had realized. Had he missed hiding places? Ears pricked, he motioned the company to continue, waited till Nalia passed, and rejoined the line beside her.
The tramping of the company's feet offered no melody. The warriors sounded only grave murmurings. Swirling through the smoke billowing overhead, the sparrows sobbed.
Horus stared at the palms and sycamores but could find nothing to distract him from his rising anxiety. Clenching and unclenching his fists, he strode to the line's front.
From ahead came the pop and crack of fire and an increasing heat. Horus flicked the sweat from his brow.
Smoke fingered between the swaying yellow-green grasses and inched toward them. Two wisps separated and moved against the wind to coil round Horus' legs.
Shoulders tensed, he fastened his hand around his sword.
The wisps darted to his wrists and then slid up his arms to his neck. "Come, Horus. Witness what has been wrought. Weep at its terrible beauty." The wisps rejoined the thickening smoke.
Ash curled along the wind to touch Horus' hands and cling, tremulous, to his cheek.
There was another loud pop, this time followed by a crash, as if a hut had collapsed. Flashes of orange appeared through the spaces between the shadowed grasses. The pitch of the fire's screams shifted higher.
Moaning, the wind circled, closing smoke around the band, and the healers coughed.
These weren't the smells of cooking fires, ceremony, or signal. No, these smells mimicked Teo's tempering of spears, Nalia's burning of rags. There was something else. Brows twitching together, Horus took another breath and straightened. Indefinable yet unmistakable as the smell of approaching rain hung the stark smell of fear.
The grasses opened onto ruin. Shredded thatching and splintered cane walls smoldered. Ripped tents shook under scattered stones and broken mud brick. All around, the dead, men, women, children, bound, limbs twisted, faces contorted.
As if struck, Horus stumbled.
Maeta rushed to cover with dirt a burning body, its gender unrecognizable.
How could charring flesh smell sweet? Horus' stomach rolled. Fist to his mouth, he shuffled to what remained of a thinned leather tent. "Tell me when Mehlchehsia's body has been found," he said to Teo. "I need to—" he stopped. Half crushed in the dirt beneath the leather's remnants lay a red-striped rattle, beside it a palm-sized, circular pouch of tanned leather. Whose had this been? He lifted it.
Inside the pouch, a few fragments of shell held among the powder. Returning the pouch to its place, he spotted a splayed reed game board. His gaze moved to the fire ring and the pottery shards and slashed baskets strewn around it. A single date lay untrampled. This had been a family tent.
Were the ones who'd lived here dead? Hoping they'd somehow escaped, Horus closed his eyes, imagining what this family's life had been.
Through the tent's proud front flaps, the bare-chested father entered, smiling broadly, holding high a trussed duck. Three boys followed him, dancing around his legs, nearly tripping him in their excitement. The tawny-eyed mother, nose streaked with flour, rose from the work of baking bread and lifted her face to her husband's kiss. At the back of the tent, the shiny-haired, cooing grandmother, eyes tender and full of love, rocked a chubby-cheeked baby.
A sudden peel of laughter came from the three youngest boys, pausing from tossing shells near the front of the tent to hear their grandfather's joke. The grandmother pursed her lips but then joined the laughter. The three elder boys sat beside her, picking up her song, and the father, sharpening his stone blade, whistled harmony. The woman touched his arm before moving to her mother, popping into the elder's mouth a freshly-warmed date.
Horus could almost feel the warmth of their fire, smell their honeyed bread. Releasing a breath, he opened his eyes. The torn tent fluttered, shifting. A grey-haired woman, arm broken, side bloodied, lay curled beside a baby, the woman's gnarled fingers spread over the child's shattered face.
Reeling backward, Horus tripped over a younger woman's arms, extended as if reaching still toward her child and her mother. Her fingers clutched the low grass as if she'd tried to drag herself to those in front of her. Her torso was twisted sideways and her tawny eyes were turned to the six boys heaped in a pile behind, roped wrists and ankles holding tight their broken arms and legs.
The unseeing gaze of the youngest boy was locked to the wide-mouthed man, lying crumpled beside the pale-robed grandfather just beyond, near the fire ring of a grouping of roofless, crumbling huts.
"No." Horus staggered to lea
n against the sycamore standing sentry over the lost.
A short length of reed rope, cane toggles around its ends, lay coiled to the right of the tree. To the left, faintly discernible among the signs of struggle, were the crisscross markings of children's games. Under the edge of a hewn sitting rock, three dried mud balls nestled together.
Horus knelt and carefully withdrew the largest ball. Turning it back and forth in the dim sunlight, he gazed at the small fingerprints. Just beside the rock were handprints, a third the size of his own.
Children had gathered here. He could almost hear their calls and laughter, see the twinkling in the eyes of the boldest and the shyness in the eyes of the chieftain's youngest son, Hensup.
Horus straightened. He didn't know this village's chieftain or the chieftain's family. Yet, he knew the boy's name. How was that possible? He must have overheard it.
Waves of haze surrounded him, and suddenly Horus could see the boy, clearly, as if he stood just before him. Again, the name came into his mind. Hensup. Perhaps ten years old. Wavy black hair pushed to hide his gentle eyes.
Another boy, face disfigured, shoulder twisted round in its healing, hobbled closer, and Hensup touched Horus' hand. Silently, he relayed the boy's name, Nessah, and the harshness of Nessah's life.
Nessah stumbled, and Hensup ran to him. Head ducked, Hensup offered his arm, offered love to the boy who'd once beaten him, the boy whose mother died a mysterious death not long after his birth, whose father betrayed them by joining Seht's followers. Chewing his lip, concentrating, Hensup held his arm steady as he helped Nessah to the sycamore.
Brother, Nessah said, love and gratitude in his eyes.
Blushing, Hensup nodded. His image wavered. He turned to Horus and pointed toward the heaped mass of bodies, too small to be adults, just past the smoldering remnants of a cane and frond hut.
Chest aching, Horus shook his head.
Again Hensup pointed.
The haze cleared. Head bowed, Horus went. His breath caught. Two, three, and four-year olds lay piled atop one another. Quickly, he turned away. A single doll lay sprawled, its head and arms torn off, grass stuffing lost.
Again haze surrounded him. Hearing a soundless scream, Horus spun.
The village in flames, three warriors, leering, Seht's flag behind them, closed on the two boys. Taking the blow meant for Nessah, Hensup fell. Nessah dropped to cover him. Shuddering, Nessah's body suffered its final beating.
"Oh, Mighty Ra." Horus covered his head. "Make this stop," he pleaded to the wind. Screams seemed to surround him. His hands, tingling, went numb.
A frond tapped his shoulder and drifted past, twisting as if to motion him to follow up the path toward the center of the village. "Please." He stared at the sky. "No more." The wind pushed him forward.
Children, skipping and laughing, rushed the path toward the line of visiting warriors and priestesses being met and welcomed at the village hut's whitewashed door. Hensup's father, wrinkled face bright with joy, held open his arms to the smiling warrior who stooped to him. Together, father and eldest son entered the hut's circle, the families assembled tossing flower petals around them.
An elder priestess, her long loose hair more grey than black, stepped forward, holding out a palm frond headdress, and the warrior bowed his head, accepting it. The priestess winked and moved back, her apprentices shaking gourds and circlets of shells.
From the cluster of warriors just behind, seven slid closer, lifted their drums, and began to play. They bobbed in time with the rhythms, their necklaces of carnelian dancing against their throats. Three warriors lifted instruments of reed. Melody soaring, they turned toward the garlanded opening, to the group of pastel-robed healers just beyond. The drumming intensified, and the healers entered. Parting, they revealed the bride.
Horus could almost smell the oils glistening over her skin and the pink flowers strewn through her loosely braided brown hair, could almost taste the nectar the groom touched to her lips before holding forward the goblet of beer they were to share.
The couple took from the chieftain's outstretched hands a fist-sized chunk of basalt. Together, they pressed it into a freshly-made mud brick, ringing their handprints around the embedded stone.
Led by the priestess, the couple moved in turn to their family bricks. At each, the chieftain held forward a carved palm-wood bowl filled with flower-infused water, and the priestess wetted the hardened mud. Intently, the bride placed shell, the groom grey bead, their offerings joining those of their families' past celebrations.
Amid cheering and chanting, the newlyweds departed the village hut and turned toward their own, freshly thatched and circled with flowers.
Horus pressed his eyes. "No. Make this stop. Whatever power this is, I don't want it." He heard the single word, witness.
Her necklace of silver and amethyst reflecting the pale sunlight, her dark purple gown indicating she was a high healer, an elder woman walked toward him. Bear witness.
The haze dissipated, the elder seeming to dissolve into the smoke swirling past.
Horus stepped, balance tenuous, over the village hut's pocked mud brick and followed the tear-shaped, faded-pink petals shivering among the low grass to the toppled and trampled wedding hut.
A patch of linen, ivory with a pale blue star, writhed against the rock pinning it. With an angry jerk, Horus unearthed the sharp-edged stone, freeing the shred of gown, so finely woven. It slipped to cover a palm-frond headdress, crushed into the dirt.
Beside the headdress was a shard of goblet, intricately scrolled, still holding the scent of beer. Beneath the shard was a grey stone bead. Horus closed his fingers around it, tapping his hand against his chest before returning the bead to its resting place.
Releasing a breath, he tugged back the hut's fallen cane wall. The bride, legs bloodied, neck broken, lay slumped over her groom. Blood pooled around the one she held, stabbed in a leering diagonal from shoulder to hip.
Horus turned to the high healer, lying just beyond, throat crushed, hand outstretched to Anitra, her only daughter. "No." He backed away, stumbled into a close scattering of corpses, and fell.
Cold limbs tangled around him. Grimacing, he lifted a blue-streaked arm, unattached. Nostrils flaring, he released it, leapt up, and skittered back.
Hunched and shivering, he lurched toward the rubble of the chieftain's hut. Spatters of blood. Puddles of blood. Men, bare throats slit.
Horus spun away to the side and stared. Before him was a multicolored mound. Chin trembling, he drew nearer.
Here were the stones, shells, and beads that had patterned the bricks of the village meeting hut. Here were the rainbow-hued bracelets that had adorned the healers and priestesses. Here were the short necklaces of carnelian that had decorated the warriors. Here were the people's symbols of family, service, and honor, covered now in ash and blood.
Jaw clenched, shock becoming rage, he turned to the pale stripes of the healer's tent. Women and children lay beneath it, their pain and horror locked across their faces.
This was beyond slaughter. This was the methodical destruction of all humans could destroy.
Horus found himself once again beside the sycamore. The debris beside it had shifted, revealing the palm-sized squared stone of a chieftain, wrenched from its setting, half pressed into the dirt.
He swept his gaze over his warriors, faces gray, bending to cut soaked rope, his priestesses, hands clasped, chanting laments, his healers, weeping, dipping their wands into jars of infused oils and swinging them over the dead.
The dead, the dead, so many dead. How could any but monsters do this? Horus' muscles, tensed, began to shake with their strain. Sweat shimmied down his back. How could he fight such evil?
In his periphery, something grey glistened under swaths of red. He turned to the chieftain, headless, gutted. The ground seemed to spin.
One of three circling vultures landed beside the
man and began pulling at what the knives of Seht's followers had exposed.
Horus bolted behind what remained of a hut and retched.
Quickly, Maeta rounded, eyes hard. "If you can't withstand this, you're unprepared for the rigors of war."
Horus snarled, and she retreated a step. "Don't test me, High Priestess. I know what's required of me." He wiped his mouth and straightened. "Like each of you amid this annihilation, I'll endure."
Ashen and blood-streaked, Teo stumbled past, Nalia just behind.
Maeta resumed her duties to the dead.
The haze returned. Sparkling and diaphanous, a girl, no more than three, took Horus' hand and led him to a stone-lined circle of low grass. The haze cleared. Her tiny body lay broken, red spread over green, the tendrils of her gold-kissed brown hair, matted with blood, unmoved by the breeze, her hazel eyes, pupils fixed dilated, unimpressed by the god before her.
His self-constraint breaking, tears spilling, Horus knelt and cut the ties from her wrists. "I'm sorry," he whispered, wiped his cheeks, and rose.
Joining the priestesses' lament, Horus walked with the healers, pausing to stare into the open eyes of each man, woman, child. The heavy sweetness of the healers' oil wafted around him, covering the scent of death, haunting as the eyes of the slain.
"Horus," Teo called, voice raspy. "Over here."
Hollow, Horus followed to the seer's body and covered his face. "Mehlchehsia."
"Nothing's been found with her, near her, or anywhere in this village or the area surrounding," Teo said. "If she intended to deliver something to you, either Seht's followers have it or she hid it in a way only you can detect. Mother thinks you should spend some time near Mehlchehsia's body." He widened his stance. "I'll ensure you're not disturbed."
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