by Jim Johnson
Tjety sent his ba-form soaring up into the afternoon sunlight. He focused on one of the wheeling buzzards, moving close to it and then steeling himself for the deep dive into its spiritual house to take temporary ownership of its body. He felt the strain even before he closed in. He tried to push his ba against the vulture’s own primitive spiritual form, but even that was too much, too strong for him to push aside. He just didn’t have the strength. The last few days had been brutal on his hekau.
He pushed his ba-bird away from the buzzard, and drifted in the air for a time, noting the long, thin, nearly-transparent cord attached to his ba-form, trailing all the way back down to his body far below. Inspiration struck him then. If he was too tired to take on a bird, perhaps he could just scan the horizon in this form for a few moments.
The drain on his hekau was significant, so he forced himself to take just a few minutes. He focused to the north, following the break in the trees that he knew was the road, trying to pick out any useful details. He found the spot where he and the others had felled the trees to block the road, and focused beyond that.
Tjety took a risk and drew more energy from his hekau, sending it up his heart-string and into his senses. He needed better eyesight than he now possessed, so he enhanced his vision and focused on the column of riders working their way along the trader’s road.
He counted off sixteen riders, all but one in riding leathers and plain headcloths matching those the bandits had all worn. The one lone exception was riding at the head of the column, a man dressed in dark robes, riding tall in the saddle of a fine black horse. He had a sword scabbard fixed to one side of his waist and serious eyes peering out underneath the folds of his black headcloth. His expression was grim, and every muscle, every movement of his body as he rode oozed confidence and strength.
Tjety caught just the slightest flare of hekau about the man, and somehow he knew, without a doubt, that this was the man responsible not only for the strange unliving things roaming the countryside, but also the raid on the village. Tjety stared at him, and whether it was a whisper from Lady Mayat, or some other intuition deep within his ba, he knew this man was his enemy.
He felt a tug on his heart-string as he focused on the man in the dark robes. His time was up and his body was telling him it was time to return. He took one last look at the man at the head of the column and blanched, because it seemed that the man had stopped his horse and was standing up in his stirrups, staring up at his ba-form.
Without hesitation, Tjety grabbed hold of his heart-string and plunged toward his body, desperate to return before any possible mischief could be inflicted upon his ba or his body. That man and his troops were nearing the blockade and would be through it sooner than later. He had to get moving, now.
He slammed his soul back into his body and rocked on Heker’s back. He grabbed both reins in his hands and steadied himself, and blinked several times to get his bearings. He glanced at Khepri, who looked surprised. “Time to go.”
Khepri stared at him. “Are you all right? You look like you seen a spirit.”
Tjety nodded. “I’m well enough, but you’re right.” He pointed to the north. “I saw the one responsible for the murder of your friends. He and his men are close to the barricade. We ride, now.”
He heeled Heker into a quick trot and moved south along the road without another word. Khepri fell in behind him. Tjety pushed Heker into a gallop, opening up as much distance as he could between him and that man in the dark robes.
CHAPTER 6
RUIA SHIFTED UNCOMFORTABLY ON THE DRIVER’S bench of the wagon, trying to maintain focus all around as they rode south along the road between the trees.
The driver, Aniba, glanced at her and offered a tired smile. "Relax, Ruia. You can't see everything at the same time."
She nodded, feeling the weariness in her bones. "I just feel like it's up to me to get everyone safely to the fort."
Aniba chucked the reins to keep the two horses moving. "You're a strong girl, Ruia. You're doing all right. I remember your ma and your da—both strong people, and good friends. You're their daughter and that's no lie."
She touched his arm in gratitude. "I appreciate that, Aniba, I really do."
She leaned back a bit to look into the back of the wagon. It was filled with the wounded, the children, and the two sister-crones, Gheti and Matti. She nodded her head toward them. "How are the fishing nets coming?" She tried to keep her tone light.
Matti looked up from her knotting work, her gnarled hands full of thin strands of rope. "It's going along, my dear. Should have the first one finished soon. Then we'll start on a second one."
The other sister, Gheti, muttered under her breath as she knotted strands together. "Don't know why we're knotting this when we could just shoot the damn fish out of the damn river."
Ruia said, "Tjety said we should conserve our ammunition. We don't know what we'll run into." She grinned half-heartedly. "Besides, there's no one in our little company who can shoot worth a damn. We're more likely to miss the river than hit any fish."
Gheti snorted as she continued her knotting. "Gimme one of them rifles and I'll shoot enough fish to last us a week."
Matti nudged her on the shoulder. "You ain't handled a gun in twenty years. You'd shoot off your own fool foot."
Gheti snorted. "Not me! I'd blast them fish out of the river." She made her hands, still knotted into the net in progress, into the shape of a finger rifle and mimicked shooting it into the river. "Ptah's tits, I bet I could even blast me a hippo, and then we'd have meat for a month. How'd that be?" She ran her tongue around her dry lips and the gaps in her teeth.
Ruia smiled, almost laughed, but then Setesk approached, all dour and gloomy. He was the town voice of doom and disaster, and she was somehow surprised he'd lived through the whole ordeal. His mouth usually got him into trouble.
Setesk walked up alongside the wagon. "Me and some of the other fellas been talkin'."
She braced for a bad conversation. "And what did you resolve?”
"We don't think going to the fort is the best thing for us. There’s medicines and food and supplies back at the village." He indicated the wagon. "We don't have nothing to trade with here other than the few things we stole from them bandits."
Ruia raised a hand. "Hold. We didn't steal nothing. Those bandits took our village, our friends, and our lives from us. We earned the right to take what they no longer need. They went to a place where their guns and supplies won't help them."
He shook his head. "All the same, we think it's a poor idea to go to the fort." He reached up to grab her arm. "Ruia, we want you to take us home."
She stared down into his pleading eyes, and her heart spun between breaking anew for her people and hardening against the truth the Ranger had explained to her and that didn't seem to register with everyone in the caravan. A twinge from her hekau renewed her flagging spirits.
She pushed his hand away. "We can't do that, Setesk. I'm sorry."
He frowned. "But why? Because that Ranger told you not to? He's not one of us, Ruia. He's an outsider, new to the frontier. Besides, he didn't look like he was all there anyway, what with that gunshot and all."
She shook her head. "We're going to the fort, and that's that. We have wounded that probably wouldn't make it to the village. The fort and its healer-priests are the best hope we have of making it through this together."
He scrunched up his face as if he’d eaten something bitter, then stepped ahead to stand in front of the wagon. Aniba pulled back on the reins to stop the horses from trampling over him.
Ruia stood up. "Get out of the way, Setesk. Trust me to lead us to the fort."
Setesk stared her down. He appeared to be working up the courage to say something more.
Aniba leaned over from the wagon bench. "Come on, Setesk. Daylight's wasting and we got a long way to go. Bridge is still somewhere up ahead. Let's get there at least before we start arguin' with each other."
Setesk star
ed at Aniba and then, after a long moment, nodded. He faced Ruia. "To the bridge, then. Think it over, Ruia. Make the right choice." He moved away from the horses.
As Aniba slapped the leads and got the horses moving again, Setesk called up to Ruia. "We're tired, Ruia. Take us home."
She met his eyes and held the look as the wagon passed him, and then she sat back down on the bench and focused forward. She glanced at the river flowing through the trees beyond the road. Somewhere ahead was the bridge. She realized that this terrain wasn't all that unfamiliar to her. She'd run south along the river just the other day, and then had been ridden back north to the camp on a horse with Qebsenuf and the other bandits when they had taken her and Tjety captive.
She crossed her arms on her knees and rested her head on her arms. Setesk and his cronies from the village were usually just full of bluster, but out here, away from home, with guns and desperation, they could probably do just about anything. If things got violent, there'd be real problems. The last thing she wanted was a fight with her own people. But Setesk was loud and persistent, and he could get some of the others to follow his lead, even if it meant leading them to their deaths.
And she wasn't sure she had enough friends among the survivors to stand with her.
CHAPTER 7
AFTER SEVERAL MINUTES OF HARD RIDING, Tjety reined in Heker and paused for Khepri to catch up. Tjety took a few gulps from a waterskin and tried hard to ignore the burning sensation coming from the gunshot in his arm. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. Shit. He felt feverish. “You need to keep riding, Khepri. Don’t wait for me.”
Khepri wheeled his horse around and stared at him. "Can’t leave you behind, Ranger. Ruia'd never forgive me."
Tjety stared off toward the north. Still no sign of that man in dark robes or his allies, but he knew that they had to be getting close. The makeshift roadblock couldn’t have been that much of a deterrent.
He nodded to Khepri. “Go on, then. Lead the way.”
Khepri heeled his horse and rode down the road. Tjety pushed Heker into a quick trot and rode alongside him. "I'm sure Ruia wouldn't think twice if you left me behind."
Khepri shrugged as he navigated the road. "I ain’t so sure. She can get right feisty when questioned. I wouldn't wanna cross her, and now....now she seems different."
Tjety shrugged. "I don't know what to say. I didn't know her, before. I'll take your word for it."
He rode with Khepri around a bend in the road, and then opened up Heker to a gallop. Khepri and his borrowed horse kept up as best they could, though it was clear that the man wasn't an experienced rider. He was holding on more to keep from falling off than he was at trying to get any additional swiftness out of the animal.
Tjety slowed Heker enough to match Khepri's speed, digging deep to find the patience between the need to get as much distance between him and the dark man and the desire to not leave Khepri behind.
To his credit, Khepri held tighter onto the reins and seemed to find his seat. He and his horse picked up a little more speed, and he glanced at Tjety as they moved along the road. "You...should ride ahead, Ranger. I'm...I'm slowing you down."
Tjety shook his head. "I'm not leaving you behind, Khepri."
Tjety traded a look with him, seeing the fear in his eyes soften somewhat. After another several minutes of steady riding, Mut and Yufa appeared in the road ahead, standing their horses off to the side.
Confused, Tjety pulled up short and stopped Heker a couple arm's lengths from them. Khepri skidded to a stop nearby.
Mut offered a weak wave. "Sorry, Tjety. My horse pulled up lame. Rode her too damned hard."
Tjety cursed and glanced north up the road. No sign of pursuit as yet, though he knew it was coming. He turned back to Mut. "How bad is she?"
Mut squatted next to the horse and ran his hand down her back left leg, and pulled it up to show the underside of her hoof.
Tjety glanced at it from where he was seated on Heker’s back. Shit. The horse's hoof was caked with blood and dirt. Mut poked at the bloody mess with a finger. The horse started and shifted sideways, but Mut managed to keep both his balance and the horse's leg in hand.
Mut called out to the horse to calm down, then pulled out his knife and started chipping away at the junk caked into the horse’s hoof. He paused and glanced up at Tjety. "This is bad, Ranger. Even if I get all this cleaned out, she's not gonna want to put much weight down on it. Not enough to ride on, anyway."
Tjety shook his head. "She'll heal up in time, but we can’t wait. Leave her and ride double with Khepri. It'll slow us down, but it's damned faster than standing here."
Mut grimaced but nodded, and dropped the horse's leg and pulled the bridle and blanket and supplies off of her and dumped it all into the bushes near the side of the road. He gathered up his weapons and then started toward Khepri and his horse.
Tjety felt a sudden spear of warning through his hekau. A chorus of hoofbeats sounded on the ground. Someone yelled a challenge. He turned to look north. The man in dark robes and four of his allies curved into view, thundering down the road toward them.
“Riders coming!” Tjety yelled, and pulled his pistol as the air around him erupted in gunfire from both sides. In moments, Mut went down hard, and one of the bandits was lifted out of his saddle by Khepri's rifle blast.
Tjety managed to score two direct hits on one of the bandits, sending him spinning out of his saddle. But then the dark-robed man plunged into the thick of things, his sword raised high. Tjety somehow managed to holster his pistol and clear his khopesh with his free hand to parry a powerful blow.
More gunfire blasted all around. It was impossible to tell in the furor who was still standing and who had fallen. Tjety's world had been reduced to two horses and the dark man and his flashing sword. Over and over the man thrust and swiped and cut at him, and it was all Tjety could do to counter his blows and keep Heker from spilling him into the dirt.
Another rifle shot boomed out, and out of the corner of his eye, Tjety saw Yufa fall off her horse and sprawl out into the dusty road. The bandit that had done for her took a wild shot at Tjety that missed but zipped close to the dark man, who shifted precariously in his saddle.
Desperate, Tjety heeled Heker into the man’s black horse, reached down to grab the man's calf, and pulled as hard as he could.
Miraculously, the gambit worked. The dark man toppled over the side of his black horse, swinging his sword ineffectually at Tjety, who wasted no time in putting heel to Heker and riding as fast as he could to the south. Tjety glanced back as he rode away, gritting his teeth at the two villagers lying prone on the road and the third, Khepri, slumped in the saddle, his horse walking aimlessly toward the tree line. Two of the bandits were sprawled out on the ground as well.
But then the dark man was getting to his feet, his two remaining allies helping him out. Tjety kicked Heker into the fastest gallop he could manage, and rode like mad, away from the disaster.
CHAPTER 8
TJETY KEPT THEM GALLOPING FOR AS long as he could, but eased off when he felt Heker heaving hard. As they slowed, Tjety checked his pistol, saw that it was empty, and then reloaded with a shaky hand. Enough. He had to give Heker some rest. It wasn’t fair to the poor beast to ride him to death.
He pulled Heker up short along the side of the road. He took a deep swig of water from his water skin, then walked Heker through the thin tree line and over to the river's shore.
He opened up his weary hekau to scan for signs of beasts, but detected nothing large enough nearby to present a threat to him or his horse.
He let Heker walk into the water, the ripples lapping at his hooves. Heker lowered his head to the water and drank deeply, his flanks expanding and contracting at every swallow.
Tjety glanced up and down the river, then up toward the sun, the god Re shining down on him. This was as good a place as any for a last stand. He lifted a leg over Heker's neck and dismounted onto the wet river shore, and knelt down to refill
his empty water skin. After replacing the cap, he closed his eyes.
“Mighty Mayat and eternal Hapi, look kindly upon your humble servant and help me survive the next few fucking minutes.” He prayed harder than he had in a long time, and opened up his ba and his hekau for any sign, any hope that someone was listening. At first, nothing, but then…something, a slow trickle of energy slipping from the river and into his hekau. Not a lot, but even that little was a wonderment, a sign that perhaps something had changed—some understanding between him and the gods?
Hooves on the ground sounded somewhere behind him, and the trickle dwindled to nothingness. His spirit and hope deflated. This was it, then. He capped his waterskin, and stood slowly, deliberately looping the waterskin back over his neck and tucking it under his sling. He drew and cocked his pistol, but left his gun hanging by his side.
Heker's ears pricked backwards and he snorted a challenge as he turned. Tjety turned likewise. The dark man’s pair of bandits moved through the trees, ducking under low branches. One had a pistol, the other a rifle. Tjety heard another horse somewhere behind them. Had to be the man in dark robes. He centered himself as best he could and drew on that little pool of fresh hekau, a precious gift from Hapi.
Before the two bandits had fully cleared the trees, Tjety focused his hekau, brought up his pistol, and placed two perfect shots into each of them. They toppled off their horses and fell onto the hard ground. With two bullets left, Tjety kept the gun up and focused his attention on the last rider coming out of the tree line.
The man in dark robes sat astride his black mare, holding the reins in one hand, with his other hand cocked on the pommel of his sheathed blade. His headcloth was looped around his mouth and neck. He offered an open-handed greeting and then lifted his hand to remove the folds of the headcloth from his face, revealing a white-toothed smile creasing a deeply tanned face. He had a thin black mustache and a regal, hooked nose.
