The Bloody Frontier (Pistols and Pyramids Omnibus Book 1)

by Jim Johnson

  He dug out a couple clean bandages, and, wetting them down, started to gingerly poke at the grime caked into his wound. He glanced at Meret as he worked. “Why attack a fishing village and take the people prisoner? What possible fucking use could they be to you?”

  Meret rolled over onto his side so that he faced Tjety. “We got plans.”

  Tjety frowned at that. “And the sand is eternal. What kind of plans?”

  Meret coughed around a hollow chuckle. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Not real helpful.”

  “Fuck you. You just gonna kill me anyway.” Meret winced and pawed at his leg. “Assumin’ this don’t kill me first.”

  Tjety sluiced more water onto his arm. A thin rivulet of blood-tinged water trickled down his tattered sleeve. He was gonna have to burn the wound to save the arm. That meant making a fire, which meant taking more time he, and especially those villagers, just didn’t have. Fuck.

  He considered the problems before him, then asked, “How far ahead are the wagons and the rest of your people?”

  Meret laid his head down on the ground. He whispered, “Fuck you, Ranger.”

  Tired of it all, Tjety barked at him, “Gods damn you, how far? Your ba’s already pretty shaky in the eyes of Lady Mayat. Do something to help me help those innocent villagers and maybe the dread Lord Osiris will judge you better than you deserve!”

  The look in Meret’s eyes suggested he saw right through his horseshit. Tjety didn’t care. He asked again, “How far, Meret? A day? More?”

  Meret closed his eyes and rested his head on the ground, mumbling to himself in Hesso.

  Tjety pressed the wet compress to his wound and adjusted his makeshift sling to hold it in place. He stood up. He wasn’t going to get anything more out of Meret. He had to get after that caravan. All he could do now for Meret was to send him on his way to the Duat. He dropped his hand to his pistol grip, then frowned. He hadn’t had a chance to clean the thing. He’d have to use his khopesh. Left-handed. Shit.

  As he drew his blade, he said, “I’d shoot you, Meret, but I have to resort to blade work instead. If you hold still, I promise I’ll make it quick. It’s a better death than making you linger over that gunshot.”

  Meret pushed himself up to a sitting position. His eyes were squinted tight against the rising sun. “Fuck you and your horse, Ranger. May you both lose your fuckin’ way in the darkness on the last road.”

  Tjety didn’t have a response for that. He limped behind Meret and raised his khopesh for the killing blow.

  The sudden crack of a rifle reached his ears just as his blade spun out of his grip. He clutched his numbing hand to his chest as he staggered away from Meret in surprise. Heker started and wheeled away.

  Three rough riders clad in dark leathers and headcloths as plain as Meret’s loomed on the road ahead, spreading out in a grim row. The one in the center, sitting tall in the saddle, cradled a Hesso-made Wech carbine. The scar splitting his face was visible even at this distance. He cranked another round and then leveled the rifle.

  In Kekhmetic much more polished than his looks, Scar said, “We’ll take over from here, Meret. Seems you’ve gotten yourself into a bit of trouble.”

  Tjety glanced at Meret and then at Heker and his pinned ears. He returned his gaze to the brigands and their weaponry as they closed in on him. He winced at a new spike of pain from his wounded arm.

  He just couldn’t score a fucking break.

  CHAPTER 11

  RUIA ALTERNATED JOGGING AND WALKING ALONG the western shore of the Iteru, making what she hoped was good time. A couple times she ducked back into the tree line, thinking to avoid some of the thick patches of reeds poking out of the river along the shore. Crocodiles tended to lurk in there, and she had no desire to become an easy meal for one of Hapi's denizens.

  She took breaks when her legs got tired, and drank handfuls from the Iteru when she could. ‘Heat and lack of water can kill’, she remembered her da telling her. She remembered the day her brother Paneb had gotten violently ill a few hours after getting home from a hunting expedition. He hadn’t listened to da.

  She especially remembered the vibrant yellow of the puke Paneb brought up. She had never forgotten the lesson. She was also careful to drink the water from what looked like clear areas of the river, and never drank downstream of a corpse.

  Shortly before Re had ascended to high noon, Ruia took a break and sought solace in the shade of the trees lining the river. She wasn't entirely sure the tree line was any safer than sitting on the shoreline, but the canopy of trees and the foliage around her felt more secluded.

  She took a few minutes to catch her breath and massage her sore legs. She wasn't used to running this much; all the more reason to drink a lot of water. The last thing she needed was to get cramped muscles, another lesson her poor brother had indirectly taught her.

  Unbidden, Paneb's image appeared in her mind, young and vibrant and confident. He had been a hero to her and she worshiped all he stood for, even when he got away with things that she and her sisters never could, mostly because he was the oldest—not so much because he was a boy, though she knew that her da had doted on him a bit more than on his daughters. Ruia couldn't help but feel sad that her ma hadn't been able to provide him with more than one son, plus three daughters. He’d loved his daughters with all his heart, but she knew he had wanted more sons.

  She thought about each member of her family then, recalling each of their faces clearly, as she had remembered them just before the attack on the village. She smiled at those memories, but they were soon supplanted by darker images of what had happened to them during the attack. Her father getting a gunshot to the chest, her mother getting bashed in the head and dragged toward their home. Her brother, brave Paneb, standing firm in the center of the street, swinging his hunting spear toward one of the bandits, but getting cut down by gunfire.

  Of her two sisters, she didn't know what had happened to them. They were both younger than her, and should have been bathing in the river when the attack had come. Ruia furrowed her brow and tried to think back, for moments during the battle where she might have seen her sisters. Flashes of images struck her mind, of her father falling, screams ripping through the village, people running and crying, and the ugly bandit who had swung his rifle butt at her head.

  But no memory of her sisters surfaced. She considered that, then focused on what she could remember from the wagon camp. Neither of her sisters had been in the covered wagon with her and Nauny, and she couldn't remember seeing either of them in the wagon filled with the dead.

  She winced at that thought, then tried to bring up recollections of the bodies in the uncovered wagon. Several faces passed her mind's eye, the ones she was certain were in the wagon, the life in their eyes gone forever, their bas already on the long passage to the Duat. Her da…

  No. It had been dark in the wagon, and she hadn't really been in the best frame of mind. All the other images of faces that appeared were blurry and indistinct in her memory.

  That left the other covered wagon, the one that had been under guard, but she hadn't had a chance to look in that one. She had no idea how many of her villagers had survived, other than the few children that had been with her and Nauny in the first wagon.

  She knelt over and bashed her fists against the ground as she yelled, letting out all her anger and frustration. She felt a pulse from her lapis amulet and a pull from her gut, and then stared at the ground. Somehow she had punched her hand down into the wet shore sand down to her elbow. Surprised, she pulled up with all her strength, getting her feet under her, and pulled her arm out. The ground made a wet sucking sound before giving up her arm.

  She stared at the hole and at her arm in wonder for several seconds, wondering how in the glittering sun she had managed to do that.

  A rustling in the brush nearby forced her mind to more immediate concerns. She stood and looked for a likely hiding place. There was a nearby tree to climb, and a coup
le thick bushes to climb into, but that was about it.

  The rustling paused, and then without further warning, a large crocodile burst out of the bushes behind her and charged with a low rumbling growl.

  She ran instinctively for the trees. She leaped up and caught hold of the lowest branches, and pulled herself up as best she could, her sandaled feet scrabbling on the lower bark of the tree. The crocodile snapped at her feet, thankfully just out of reach, and then circled around underneath her.

  Her feet found purchase on the tree trunk, but it was a struggle to pull herself up and over the thick tree branch she had grabbed onto. She sought better purchase with her hands, but it was hard to find good leverage and also keep an eye on the terrifying beast below her.

  A lowing from the river distracted her, and she turned her head to see a pair of young hippos emerge from the river and walk onto the shore, shaking water off their pelts.

  As if things couldn't get worse! Ruia knew that hippos, when needed, could move deceptively fast and might very well catch her if they saw her.

  “May all you gods give me strength!” She focused on her amulet to give her courage, and watched the crocodile move just under her. She pushed off the tree and landed on the crocodile's head with both sandaled feet, trying to drive all her modest weight down onto the creature's head.

  It seemed to have the desired effect. The crocodile's mouth crashed into the ground, and she felt something give underneath her. She spared a quick glance toward the hippos and sprinted as fast as she could away from the beasts.

  As before, she didn't look back, only focused on the path she was making. Turning around would just slow her down.

  At one point she startled a ground nest of ducks, and they scattered around her feet. She nearly tripped on one of them, but maintained her footing and angled for the more open shoreline. Her feet fairly flew once she was on the shore, and she didn't stop running until a brutal stitch in her side forced her to come to a stuttering halt, her sandals splashing in the low tide.

  Ruia bent over to catch her breath, and took the moment to look behind her. She saw waving trees, the lapping river on the shore, and her own footprints lined out behind her. No hippos and no crocodile. She clasped a hand around her amulet. “Thank you Mayat, and Hapi, and every other good god keeping your eyes out for me today.”

  She reached down for a couple handfuls of water, then knelt down and dunked her head into the river, letting the water wash over her stubbled head and sluice into her knotted sidelock. She put both hands on her sidelock and wrung out the worst of the water, then flipped it so that the thick braid hung over her right shoulder.

  Ruia looked along the shoreline, not recognizing any of the terrain. Not surprising, since she had rarely ventured out of the village save for two trips to the fort with her da to trade goods, and one hunting jaunt with her brother that she wished she could forget.

  She had run pretty far that morning, and had followed the river the whole time. The crossroads to the fort had to be somewhere ahead, which meant that the low bridge across the river at its narrowest point hereabouts would have to be getting nearer as well.

  Unless...a sudden horrified thought struck her that maybe she had run along the river in the wrong direction. But, no, checking the current's flow assured her that she was going the right way. Somewhere ahead had to be the crossroads and the bridge.

  She started to walk in that direction, then paused long enough to rummage around the tree line for a stout stick. After some trial and error, she found a likely candidate, and stripped a few small twigs and branches off of it. It was reasonably straight and felt solid in her hands.

  She used it to dig in the dirt and eventually unearthed a few rocks, and searched around until she found one that had a little bit of an edge. She stripped the bark off one end of the stick as best she could, then whittled a makeshift point onto it. The results were less than spectacular, but it was better than being bare-handed.

  Ruia examined the tip of her newly-made spear and tossed the rock back into the underbrush. It would have to do.

  If nothing else, she could poke the eye out of anything that came at her and then run like mad. She resumed her trek along the river shore, amused that her heart found newfound strength and courage from something so humble as a walking stick.

  CHAPTER 12

  THROUGH THE BLOODY HAZE CLOUDING HIS vision, Tjety realized that the scarred man and his allies were good at what they did; better than many professionals he’d encountered so far in his short life. As another solid punch connected, sending a spear of pain up his spine, the hope struck him that he’d be able to stretch out that life just a little while longer.

  Another hammer blow fell on his shoulder, and he sagged to his knees once more. Through the stars twinkling his vision in spite of the bright sunlight, the blood-flecked ground underneath him rushed up and smashed him in the face. He sprawled out into the dirt. One of Scar’s men giggled.

  A hard kick to Tjety’s ribs left him gasping for air, and then the bandit with the thick mustache kicked him onto his back and then ground a sandaled heel down onto the dirty bandages wrapped around his gunshot wound. Tjety howled from the pain.

  “Lookee here, boss. Ranger got hisself popped.” Mustache grinned brightly under that fearsome lip brush and leaned more of his weight into the heel-grinding.

  Tjety cried out and then slapped at the man’s sandaled foot with his good hand. Mustache was thrown off balance but somehow kept his other foot underneath him as he hopped away.

  His lanky companion, the one with the ear-splitting giggle, stepped over and kneed Tjety under the chin. His teeth rattled. He crashed down onto his back again, sending up clouds of dust. He went for his pistol, but found nothing but leather and air where it should have been. He’d lost it early on when they had commenced the beating.

  Giggles loomed over him. “You feckin’ Ranger. Where’s your fancy blade and your fancy gun now?” He giggled harshly and then stomped down on Tjety’s left shin.

  The hard leather greave strapped to his shin buckled under the blow but didn’t crack. The thing had been crafted by the Rangers’ best armorers. Tjety tucked his legs up and went fetal, trying to catch his breath but also desperately trying to keep an eye on his surroundings. These were the worst odds he’d ever faced and he didn’t see any way out.

  Scar was over by Meret, tending as best he could to the wounded man. Heker, poor Heker, had been roped, dragged down onto the trader’s road, and trussed up good and tight. He didn’t think the horse was badly wounded—if Scar knew anything about horses, he’d know that Heker would be worth a lot of deben, assuming he’d even sell such a fine mount.

  Mustache and Giggles closed in, casting their shadows over Tjety. He squinted up through the stars in his vision and the pain all over his body, and coughed out some dust. He got another kick in the ribs and a piercing giggle in his ears for his trouble. He groaned at the new explosions of agony.

  “Whatcha think we oughta do with him, boss?” asked Giggles.

  Meret hissed through his teeth. “Good-for-nothing Ranger deserves to die.”

  Scar leveled a calculating gaze toward Tjety. “I suspect he certainly does deserve to die, and soon.” Scar stood. “But we’re not the ones to deliver that final act.” He gestured toward his men. “Tie him up and get his horse fit to ride. We’ll take them back to the quarry.”

  Meret growled in that weird border speech and slowly rose to his feet, staggering as he clutched at his thigh. “No, Qebsenuf! He needs to die, now. Gimme a gun and let me do him. Bastard shot me…it’s only fair.”

  Qebsenuf, the bandit with the scar, rested a hand on Meret’s shoulder. “Meret, you’re weak and feverish. You’re not thinking this through.” Even through his pain-fog, Tjety caught the condescending tone.

  “Our lord and master needs living slaves to complete the more detailed work that the constructs cannot manage. This one,” he pointed toward Tjety, “will be more valuable alive than
dead.”

  Tjety absorbed Qebsenuf’s words, sensing something important contained within them, but understanding eluded him. Perhaps later, if there even was a later for him.

  Meret gritted his teeth. “But I want him dead.”

  Qebsenuf made a sympathetic noise. “We all have wants, Meret. I wanted you to be stronger than this.”

  Meret met Qebsenuf’s eyes, confusion and hurt plain on his face.

  After a long silent moment, Qebsenuf added, “Plead your case to Master Deshi. Perhaps he’ll allow you to deliver the final blow.” He gestured toward his allies. “Go, tie him up and get him onto his horse. We ride north to catch up with the caravan.”

  Giggles and Mustache each grabbed an arm and pulled Tjety to his feet, who winced in fresh pain. They somehow managed to hit every bruise and wound on his body. He dredged around for some strength in his hekau, but he was tapped out.

  Exhausted and beaten, he was powerless to stop them from dragging him over to Heker’s thrashing form. Giggles held him out of the way while Mustache laid into Heker with a short whip, yelling at the horse to be still.

  Eventually, Giggles had to sit Tjety down on the ground with a hip-jarring push and lend a hand to Mustache. The two bandits managed to get Heker beaten into submission. Heartbroken, Tjety got a good look at Heker, who stared back at him with pain-glazed eyes.

  Giggles tied Tjety’s hands behind his back, sending up new flares of pain from his wounded arm. Then both he and Mustache lifted Tjety up and draped him over Heker’s back, securing him fast with more rope slung under Heker’s belly.

  Meret shuffled his way over to the grass and retrieved his leather satchel and knife, and then fished Tjety’s khopesh out of the dirt. “Maybe I’ll use the Ranger’s own blade to have a little fun, yeah?” He moved close to Tjety and spat into his face.